Factors affecting the consumption behavior of iodine supplement in Bo Luang village, Bo Kluea Tai sub-District, Bo Kluea District, Nan Province

Abstract

Iodine deficiency disorder has been a major health problem in Thailand for decades. It affects to quality of life and population. Promoting public to access and use of iodized salt is a recognized for solving problems by the WHO. However, promotion of production and use of iodized salt has established in Ban Bo Luang. Bo Kluea Sub-district, Bo Kluea District, Nan Province, but it was found that coverage of salt intake and iodine supplements of households is still lower than standard and high rate of goiter. This study aimed to assess factors affecting iodized salt supplement consumption behavior of household. Mixed-method was used, quantitative study was to survey knowledge, attitude and consumption behavior of iodized salt supplement in households by questionnaire, and then analyzed factors affecting iodized salt supplement consumption behavior, qualitative study was an in-depth interviewed with community leaders via structured interview. This study was approved by the Human Research Ethical Committee of Health Promotion Center 1, Chiang Mai. The tools were validated by three nutrition experts and reliability value of Cronbach Alpha Coefficient was 0.73. Data collection were conducted from August 2018 to January 2019. The quantitative data analysis was done by descriptive statistics and Multiple linear regression was used to analyze the factors affeting behavior of salt consumption, content analysis was used for qualitative data. We found that most of participants were female, mean age of 41.9 years, trading career, income of 4,000-5,000 baht per month, the knowledge, attitude and behavior of iodine supplement consumption at moderate level. The factors associated with affecting iodine supplement consumption behavior were household income (p=.029), accessing to iodized salt supplements (p= .038), and receiving iodine information (p= .045) with statistical significance at .05 level. Moreover, the households were lack of knowledge and wrong attitude about iodine supplement, such as preserving food with iodized salt would be spoil and dark, adding iodized salt to food would be bad taste and Iodine salt made people tired, impotence or infertility. The recommendation for problem solving are to provide knowledge about the benefit of iodized and change the right attitudes of villagers through community leaders and increasing communication of iodine information with local language, increasing of iodized salt in grocery and surveillance the quality of iodized salt should be done. In addition, the initiative of local food menu with adding or preserving iodine, and collaboration of relevant agencies networks should be development and continue.

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