Level and predictors of dietary diversity among pregnant women in rural South-West Ethiopia: a community-based cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVE: To assess the magnitude of dietary diversity and associated factors among pregnant women in the rural communities of Jimma Zone, south-west Ethiopia. DESIGN: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted from 1 June to 30 June 2020. SETTINGS: The study was conducted in Seka Chekorsa and Mana districts. From a total of 63 listed kebeles, 21 were randomly selected. PARTICIPANTS: Three hundred sixty first-trimester pregnant women have participated in this study. We used a systematic random sampling method to select the participants after a home-to-home census. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOMES: Dietary diversity was assessed using a 24 hours dietary recall method. Descriptive statistics were computed to describe the study subjects. Bivariate and multivariable logistic regression was run to control for all possible confounding effects and measure the strength of association between the outcome of interest and predictor. RESULTS: The overall magnitude of adequate dietary diversity was found to be 186 (51.7%); 95% CI 46.1% to 56.4%). Having attended elementary education (adjusted OR (AOR)=2.45; 95% CI 1.33 to 4.51), completed grade 8 (AOR=6.05; 95% CI 2.65 to 13.80), attended high school (AOR=11.69; 95% CI 3.76 to 36.27), completed high school and above (AOR=2.92; 95% CI 1.16 to 7.32), husbands attended high school (AOR=2.92; 95% CI 1.15 to 7.47), family size of less than five (AOR=3.44; 95% CI to 1.77–6.66) were positively significantly associated with adequate dietary diversity. On the other hand, not had additional meal during pregnancy (AOR=0.42; 95% CI 0.21 to 0.83) was negatively associated with adequate dietary diversity. CONCLUSIONS: We observed that the adequate dietary diversity score of pregnant women was low compared with the pooled proportion of dietary diversity conducted in Ethiopia. Therefore, strengthening and promoting female education through intersectoral collaborations and additional meal counselling during pregnancy is indispensable.