Factors influencing promotive behaviours in mothers of Indonesian children with avoidant restrictive food intake disorder

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to identify predictors of promotive behaviours in mothers of Indonesian children with avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID). METHODS: A cross-sectional descriptive survey was administered to 245 mothers who were caring for children with ARFID. Data were collected with a self-administered questionnaire. For descriptive data analysis, independent t-test, Mann–Whitney U test, one-way analysis of variance, Kruskal–Wallis, and multiple linear regression were employed. RESULTS: The factors related to promotive behaviours in these mothers were embodied in mutual parenting, especially in terms of childcare (p = 0.001 < 0.05) and interaction with children (p = 0.001 < 0.05. Additionally, multiple linear regression showed that mutual parenting remained at the communication domain, with children as the primary predictor (β 0.401, p 0.001), where the number of children (β −0.201, p = 0.008) influenced the promotive behaviours. CONCLUSIONS: This study found that the number of children and mutual parenting in interacting with children were key factors that influenced promotive behaviours in mothers of children with ARFID. We suggest that nursing interventions can potentially improve promotive behaviours in this population.