The Relationship between Knowledge, Attitude and Practice towards Dietary Salt Intake among Thai Nurses
Keywords:
KAP, salt, nurses, Thai, health educationAbstract
The relationship between knowledge, attitude and practice towards dietary salt intake has been
investigated in a number of studies. Few studies, however, explored the correlation between these three
dietary-salted-related factors in nurses although excessive sodium intake is the primary cause of illnesses.
The aims of this study are to examine the knowledge, attitude and practice towards dietary salt intake among
Thai nurses at Naresuan University Hospital, and to explore the relationship between these three factors. A
total of 135 Thai nurses participated in the online survey of this study. The majority of the nurses were female.
The survey instrument was a structured questionnaire assessing their knowledge, attitude and practice towards
dietary salt intake. Cronbach’s alpha for the internal consistency reliability of each set of multiple Likert
items was higher than 0.75. The findings showed that most nurses had appropriate body mass index (BMI),
and they had average levels of the knowledge, attitude and practice towards dietary salt intake (M = 7.35,
S.D. = 1.39 out of 12; M = 37.36, S.D. = 9.80 out of 65; M = 20.02, S.D. = 7.09 out of 41). All subjects
concurred that renal disease and high blood pressure were linked to a diet heavy in salt. Most subjects
responded that they ate more salt than the recommended amount. The recommendations are those advised
by health professionals. The Pearson’s correlation coefficients showed that the dietary-salt-related knowledge
was positively correlated with the attitude (r = 0.21, p-value = 0.01). Nevertheless, the relationships between
the knowledge and behavior, and the attitude and behavior were not found to be correlated. These findings
suggest the need for pedagogical health education and dietary counseling to enhance the dietary-salt-related
knowledge, attitude and practice among Thai nurses.
References
Bhattacharya, S., Thakur, J., & Singh, A. (2018). Knowledge attitude, and practice regarding dietary salt
intake among urban slum population of North India.
Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care, 7(3),
-530. https://doi.org/10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_60_17.
Chailimpamontree, W., Kantachuvesiri, S., Aekplakorn,
W., Lappichetpaiboon, R., Sripaiboonkij Thokanit,
N., Vathesatogkit, P., . . . Chuaykarn, N. (2021).
Estimated dietary sodium intake in Thailand:
A nationwide population survey with 24-hour urine
collections. The Journal of Clinical Hypertension,
(4), 744-754. https://doi.org/10.1111/jch.14147.
Cheikh Ismail, L., Hashim, M., H. Jarrar, A., N. Mohamad,
M., T. Saleh, S., Jawish, N., . . . Aldarweesh, D.
(2019). Knowledge, attitude, and practice on salt and
assessment of dietary salt and fat intake among
University of Sharjah students. Nutrients, 11(5), 941.
https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11050941.
Department of Medical Services. (2020). Sodium, danger
from tasty food: Recommendations to reduce salt
intake. News for Mass Media. Retrieved January 2,
, from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FwW88o
lHDMQw2-XEFah3P4zwlrpTYbkp/view?fbclid=
IwAR24Ziegtru9KvO-Myu9pYcEBIVzWB0kr
HkuIYFfYmBKihWzVgLKn4bw1FE&pli=1 [โซเดียม
ภัยเงียบจำกของอร่อย แนะนำวิธีลดเค็มง่ำย ๆ ห่ำง
ไกลโรคไต]. [In Thai].
Ghimire, K., Adhikari, T. B., Rijal, A., Kallestrup, P.,
Henry, M. E., & Neupane, D. (2019). Knowledge,
attitudes, and practices related to salt consumption
in Nepal: Findings from the community-based
management of non-communicable diseases project
in Nepal (COBIN). The Journal of Clinical
Hypertension, 21(6), 739-748. doi: 10.1111/jch.13544.
Haron, H., Kamal, N. F., Yahya, H. M., & Shahar, S.
(2021). Knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of
Malay elderly on salt intake and its relationship with
blood pressure. Front Public Health. 2021 Feb
;8:559071. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.559071. PMID:
; PMCID: PMC7890185.
He, F. J., & MacGregor, G. A. (2010). Reducing
population salt intake worldwide: from evidence to
implementation. Progress in cardiovascular diseases,
(5), 363-382. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pcad.2009.12.006
He, F. J., & Macgregor, G. A. (2012). Salt intake, plasma
sodium, and worldwide salt reduction. Annals of
medicine, 44(sup1), S127-S137. https://doi.org/10.
/07853890.2012.660495
Kasemsup, R., & Taneepanichskul, S. (2013). Sodium
intake and socio-demographic determinants of the
non-compliance with daily sodium intake recommendations: Thai NHES IV. J Med Assoc Thai, 96(5),
S161-S170. [In Thai].
Khokhar, D., Nowson, C., Margerison, C., Bolam, B., &
Grimes, C. (2019). Comparison of salt-related
knowledge, attitudes and behaviours between parents
and caregivers of children under 18 years of age and
other adults who do not care for children under 18
years of age in Victoria, Australia. BMJ nutrition,
prevention & health, 2(2), 51-62.
Launiala, A. (2009). How much can a KAP survey tell
us about people’s knowledge, attitudes and practices?
Some observations from medical anthropology
research on malaria in pregnancy in Malawi.
Anthropology Matters, 11(1). 1-13.
Leyvraz, M., Mizéhoun-Adissoda, C., Houinato, D.,
Moussa Baldé, N., Damasceno, A., Viswanathan,
B., . . . Bovet, P. (2018). Food consumption,
knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to salt in
urban areas in five sub-saharan African countries.
Nutrients, 10(8), 1028. https://doi.org/10.3390/
nu10081028.
Mahat, D., Isa, Z. M., Tamil, A. M., Mahmood, M. I.,
Othman, F., & Ambak, R. (2017). The association
of knowledge, attitude and practice with 24 hours
urinary sodium excretion among Malay healthcare
staff in Malaysia. International Journal of Public
Health Research, 7(2), 860-870.
Makowski, D., Ben-Shachar, M. S., Patil, I., & Lüdecke,
D. (2020). Methods and algorithms for correlation
analysis in R. Journal of Open Source Software,
(51), 2306. https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.02306.
Mondal, R., Sarker, R. C., Sayrin, R., Afrin, R., Zaman,
K., Acharya, N. P., . . . Choudhury, S. R. (2019).
Knowledge, Attitude and Practice towards Dietary
Salt Intake among Nurses Working in a Cardiac
Hospital in Bangladesh Sciences. Cardiovascular
Journal, 12(1), 53-58. https://doi.org/10.3329/cardio.
v12i1.43420.
Photi, J., Chavasit, V., Chitchang, U., Egkantrong, P.,
Chinchanupap, K., & Boonpraderm, A. (2020).
Reduction of sodium intake from papaya salad with
the use of sodium-reduced fermented fish in
producing traditional seasoning sauce. Journal of
nutritional science and vitaminology, 66(Supplement),
S173-S178. https://doi.org/10.3177/jnsv.66.S173.
R Core Team. (2022). R: A language and environment
for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R
Foundation for Statistical Computing. Available
online at https://www.R-project.org/.
Rusmevichientong, P., Morales, C., Castorena, G.,
Sapbamrer, R., Seesen, M., & Siviroj, P. (2021).
Dietary salt-related determinants of hypertension in
rural northern Thailand. International Journal of
Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(2),
Schneider, B. (2003). Measuring results: Gaining insight
on behavior change strategies and evaluation
methods from environmental education, museum,
health, and social marketing programs. New York:
Coevolution Institute.
World Health Organization. (2012). Guideline: Sodium
intake for adults and children. Switzerland: World
Health Organization.
World Health Organization BMI classification. (2016).
Secondary BMI classification. Retrieved from http://
apps.who.int/bmi/index.jsp?introPage=intro_3.html
Xu, W., Sun, G., Lin, Z., Chen, M., Yang, B., Chen, H.,
… Cao, K. (2010). Knowledge, attitude, and
behavior in patients with atrial fibrillation
undergoing radiofrequency catheter ablation.
Journal of interventional cardiac electrophysiology,
(3), 199-207. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10840-010-
-2.
Yamane, T. (1973). Statistics: an introductory analysis
(3rd ed.). New York: Harper and Row.
Zhang, J., Xu, A.-q., Ma, J.-x., Shi, X.-m., Guo, X.-l.,
Engelgau, M., . . . Wang, H.-c. (2013). Dietary
sodium intake: knowledge, attitudes and practices
in Shandong Province, China, 2011. PloS one, 8(3),
e58973.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Journal of Nursing and Health Sciences
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
