Nutrition education has significant impact on perceived barriers to healthy diet among adults with and without COVID‑19 history

Abstract

Healthy diet is an important tool to lower the risk and severity of COVID‑19 infection. Low diet quality is usually caused by perceived barriers that stop people to do certain behavior. Perceived barriers can be overcome by imple‑menting proper method such as conducting nutrition education. This study aimed to analyze the impact of nutrition education on perceived barrier to healthy diet among adults with and without covid‑19 history in Padang, Indonesia. This study was a pre‑experimental study using pre and post‑design. This study was conducted on 70 adults with or without COVID‑19 infection history, residing in Padang, Indonesia. The intervention was given in the form of nutrition education. Difference test was conducted to assess the impact of nutrition education on respondents' nutrition knowledge and perceived barriers. The majority of the respondents both with and without COVID‑19 history (71.4 and 80%) had medium level of nutritional knowledge before the intervention. After the intervention, there was a significant (P<0.05) improvement on respondents' nutritional knowledge for both groups (100%). The result also showed 40% of the respondents with COVID‑19 history had medium level of perceived barriers, while 28.6% respondents without COVID‑19 history (65.7%) had medium level of perceived barriers before the intervention. A significant improvement (P<0.05) also showed on respondents' perceived barriers after the intervention. On both groups more 90% of the respondents only had low level of perceived barriers. The result shows that nutrition education has significant impact both on respondents' nutritional knowledge and perceived barriers.