A Study on Knowledge, Attitude and Practices Regarding Household Consumption of Iodized Salt among Selected Urban Women of Tripura, India

Abstract

Introduction: Iodine deficiency is not only responsible for endemic goiter but it is the single most common cause of preventable mental retardation and brain damage in the world today. Wide range of variation exists in household consumption of iodized salt across different states which warrant the need of the present study. Aim: To assess the knowledge, attitude and practices regarding household consumption of iodized salt and associated factors among women in an urban area of Tripura. Materials and Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted among 260 randomly selected women, who were involved in day to day household cooking, residing within the field practice area of Urban Health Training Centre (UHTC), Dukli under Department of Community Medicine, Tripura Medical College and Dr BRAM Teaching Hospital, for a period of three months. A predesigned, pretested, semi-structured interview schedule was used for data collection and analysed using SPSS version 16.0 software. Data were represented in the form of frequency distribution tables; Chi-square test and Fisher’s-exact test was used to see the associations as and when required. Results: In this study, majority (64.62%) of the participants have not heard of iodized salt but showed good practice (87.3%) regarding iodized salt consumption. Good knowledge, attitude was significantly associated with higher age group, education and socio-economic class of the participants. Conclusion: Although majority of the participants showed good knowledge and practice related to iodized salt consumption at household level, time of adding salt while cooking was still faulty in most of them.

Keywords

• cooking
• dukli
• female
• iodine
• packaged salt