Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Salt Intake Among Faculty of Health Science Students
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Abstract
Introduction: Youth nowadays consume high salt intake, due to lack of knowledge and poor attitude and practices. Excessive salt intake is the main contributor to the increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, further study is needed to see whether different backgrounds of study programs and sociodemographic factors of FSK students result in different KAP level of salt intake. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 270 FSK students. This study employs a Salt Intake-Related Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice Questionnaire for Malaysian adults (SI-KAP) questionnaire validated by a study elsewhere. Sociodemographic and KAP data were collected. The sampling methods used in the study were convenient sampling. Results: Majority subjects were female (85.6%) and Malays (66.3%). Mostly were from the third year (36.3%) of the Nutritional Sciences Programme (21.9%). The majority subjects (60.7%) have a fair level of knowledge, with 91.1% of subjects having a positive attitude and inadequate practices on salt intake (72.6%). Most of the subjects (52.2%) obtained a fair level of KAP for overall KAP score level. Nevertheless, nutrition/diet-related courses were found to have a better overall KAP level compared to non-nutrition/diet-related courses. Conclusion: There is significant difference (p<0.05) between knowledge, attitude, practice and overall KAP scores with nutrition/diet-related and non-nutrition/diet-related courses. More studies are recommended to address KAP level of salt intake on students with nutrition and non-nutrition backgrounds. Thus, this finding can aid in creating awareness, thus cater the complication of excessive salt intake.
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