Knowledge, attitudes and practices on food hygiene among caregivers of malnourished children at Mulago and Kisenyi, Uganda [Conference Abstract]

Nantongo Jennifer; Kamukama Saul

doi:10.37432/JIEPH-CONFPRO6-00054

Conference Abstract | Volume 8, Abstract NACNDC/19JASH054 (Poster C50) | Published: 30 Nov 2025

Knowledge, attitudes and practices on food hygiene among caregivers of malnourished children at Mulago and Kisenyi, Uganda

Nantongo Jennifer^1,&, Kamukama Saul¹

¹Department of Disease Control and Environmental Health, Makerere University School of Public Health, Kampala, Uganda.

^&Corresponding author: Nantongo Jennifer, Department of Disease Control and Environmental Health, Makerere University School of Public Health, Kampala, Uganda. Email: jennifernantongo9@gmail.com

Received: 28 Aug 2025, Accepted: 20 Oct 2025, Published: 30 Nov 2025

Domain: Maternal and Child Health

This is part of the Proceedings of the National Annual Communicable and Non-Communicable Diseases Conference (NACNDC) and 19th Joint Annual Scientific Health (JASH) Conference 2025

Keywords: Food hygiene, caregivers, malnourished children

^©Nantongo Jennifer et al. Journal of Interventional Epidemiology and Public Health (ISSN: 2664-2824). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Cite this article: Nantongo Jennifer et al. Knowledge, attitudes and practices on food hygiene among caregivers of malnourished children at Mulago and Kisenyi. Journal of Interventional Epidemiology and Public Health. 2025;8(ConfProc6):054. https://doi.org/10.37432/JIEPH-CONFPRO6-00054

Introduction

Food hygiene is usually neglected during control of diarrheal infections in malnourished children. Malnourished children stand lower chances of survival when infected with diarrhea. This study assessed the knowledge, attitudes and practices on food hygiene among caregivers of malnourished children in Mwanamugimu Nutrition Unit (MNU) and Kisenyi Health Centre IV (HCIV).

Methods

This was a cross-sectional quantitative study. A structured questionnaire was administered among 120 caregivers. Univariate analysis was done using STATA 14.

Results

Most respondents were female 94.2% (113) and majority were aged between 15-29 years (71). Among the respondents, 74.2% (89) did not know the correct time for storing leftover food and 42.5% (51) reported to feed their children on leftover food. 36.7% (44) did not know that malnutrition could occur because of poor food hygiene practices. Generally, 90.8% (109) had poor knowledge, 94.2% (113) had good attitudes and 82.5% (99) had good self-reported practices.

Conclusion

Caregivers still lack knowledge in some aspects of food hygiene such as storage of leftover food and this could contribute to the occurrence of diarrhea among malnourished children. Food hygiene health education should tackle the aspect of storage of leftover food.

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Keywords

Food hygiene
Caregivers
Malnourished children