Effectiveness Of A Community-Based Intervention To Reduce Behavioral Risks Targeting Mothers’ Knowledge, Attitude, And Associated Households’ Awareness Towards Salt Intake Reduction To Preven

ABSTRACT

Background: High Salt foods are linked to elevated blood pressure, a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, particularly hypertension. Community salt reductions strategies may complement nationally led initiatives and contribute to achieving global salt reduction targets. This study aimed to test the effectiveness of the community-based training intervention among the household mothers towards salt intake reduction to prevent Hypertension in Dodoma, Tanzania. Methods: Uncontrolled a quasi-experimental study was conducted on 208 participants from rural and urban communities in the Dodoma region, Tanzania. The primary unit of analysis was purposively mothers randomly selected from 52 households, others were three family members from each household obtained through the outlined criteria. Father in the family was given priority and the other two, older to younger approach was used for selection. Family members were only subjected to baseline assessment of awareness while mothers were subjected to baseline assessment of awareness, knowledge, and attitude, then intervention followed by post-test in both units. An analysis against post-test change was carried out. Data were collected in two phases (pre-test and post-test) through structured questionnaires. Both descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were made using SPSS version 20. Results: The findings of the study indicated that 52 mothers with awareness mean score difference was 0.11, at pre-test 1.43, at post-test 1.54. The mean score change of the group (52 mothers) for the knowledge was 0.18, at pre-test 1.38 and at posttest 1.56. The mean score change of the group for the attitude was 0.17, at pre-test 1.50 and at post-test 1.67.The 156 family members with awareness mean score difference was 0.09, at pre-test 1.44, at post-test 1.53. Conclusion: Community-based training intervention strategy demonstrated to be effective in improving awareness, knowledge, and attitude towards salt intake reduction to prevent Hypertension in the community level, especially in households. Key words: Salt intake, household, awareness, knowledge, attitude, hypertension, hypertension and salt intake, Tanzania, mothers, and Community Based Intervention.