Evaluation of questionnaire as an instrument to measure the level of nutritional and weight gain knowledge in pregnant women in Poland. A pilot study

Real-world insights on nutritional awareness and behaviors among preconception and pregnant women in three Asia Pacific countries

Introduction

In many parts of Asia Pacific (APAC), insufficient intake of micronutrients that are important for conception and pregnancy remains a prevalent issue among women of reproductive age. It is crucial to gain insights into women's nutritional awareness and nutrition-related behaviors, as well as how these relate to their health literacy (HL). This understanding can help identify gaps and guide the development of appropriate intervention strategies. However, there appears to be limited relevant data available for the APAC region. We therefore examined nutritional awareness and behaviors among preconception and pregnant women in three APAC countries, and explored how these were related to women's HL.

Methods

Cross-sectional online surveys were conducted among preconception (i.e., planning to conceive within the next 12 months or currently trying to conceive) and pregnant women in Australia (N = 624), China (N = 600), and Vietnam (N = 300). The survey questionnaire included a validated tool for HL (Newest Vital Sign) and questions to examine awareness and behaviors relating to healthy eating and prenatal supplementation during preconception and pregnancy.

Results

Despite recommendations for a quality diet complemented by appropriate supplementation during preconception and pregnancy, many respondents in each country were not aware of the specific impact of adequate nutrition during these stages. While many respondents reported changes in their diet to eat more healthily during preconception and pregnancy, a substantial proportion were not taking prenatal supplements. Higher HL was related to greater nutritional awareness and higher use of prenatal supplements.

Discussion

Our findings suggest that there are gaps in nutritional awareness and practices of many preconception or pregnant women in the three countries. Interventions to improve HL would be valuable to complement conventional knowledge-centric nutrition education, and enhance understanding and empower women to adopt appropriate nutritional practices throughout their preconception/pregnancy journey.

Archetype analysis and the PHATE algorithm as methods to describe and visualize pregnant women's levels of physical activity knowledge

The knowledge of physical activity (PA) recommended for pregnant women and practical application of it has positive impact on the outcome. Nevertheless, it is estimated that in high-income countries over 40% of pregnant women are insufficiently physically active. One of the reasons is insufficient knowledge pregnant women have about allowed effort during pregnancy and both recommended and not recommended physical activities. Description of knowledge about physical activity the women have and distinguishing patterns of their knowledge is becoming an increasingly important issue. A common approach to handle survey data that reflect knowledge involves clustering methods or Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Nevertheless, new procedures of data analysis are still being sought. Using survey data collected by the Institute of Mother and Child Archetypal analysis has been applied to detect levels of knowledge reflected by answers given in a questionnaire and to derive patterns of knowledge contained in the data. Next, PHATE (Potential of Heat-diffusion for Affinity-based Trajectory Embedding) algorithm has been used to visualize the results and to get a deeper insight into the data structure. The results were compared with picture derived from PCA. Three archetypes representing three patterns of knowledge have been distinguished and described. The presentation of complex data in a low dimension was obtained with help of PHATE. The formations revealed by PHATE have been successfully described in terms of knowledge levels reflected by the survey. Finally, comparison of PHATE with PCA has been shown. Archetype analysis combined with PHATE provides novel opportunities in examining nonlinear structure of survey data and allows for visualization that captures complex relations in the data. PHATE has made it possible to distinguish sets of objects that have common features but were captured neither by Archetypal analysis nor PCA. Moreover, for our data, PHATE provides an image of data structure which is more detailed than interpretation of PCA.

Avaliação de tecnologia educativa para crianças com diabetes: estudo metodológico

Resumo Objetivos descrever o processo de elaboração e avaliação de tecnologia educativa destinada à promoção do cuidado de crianças com diabetes. Método pesquisa metodológica desenvolvida em duas fases: elaboração e avaliação. A fase de elaboração compõe: revisão de literatura; diagnóstico situacional e elaboração das ilustrações; layout; design e textos. Aplicou-se a escala Likert para a avaliação de conteúdo. Os dados foram analisados por meio do coeficiente alfa de Cronbach, Índice de Validade de Conteúdo e nível de concordância. Resultados a definição da temática teve como base as demandas percebidas no diagnóstico situacional e a revisão de literatura. A seleção das imagens foi realizada por meio de fotografias, banco de imagens e Illustrator. As informações foram construídas como história em quadrinhos com o auxílio de designer gráfico. A tecnologia, avaliada por 12 profissionais de saúde, demonstrou nível de confiabilidade satisfatório conforme o coeficiente alfa de Cronbach (0,7121). O Índice de Validade de Conteúdo (0,875) e o nível de concordância (91,67) foram classificados como altos. Conclusão este estudo apresentou considerações relevantes na promoção do cuidado e no aumento do escopo de possibilidades de intervenções do profissional de saúde na perspectiva do cuidado centrado na criança e na família.