Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Pediatr. Mar 9, 2024; 13(1): 89139
Published online Mar 9, 2024. doi: 10.5409/wjcp.v13.i1.89139
Effect of nutrition-related infodemics and social media on maternal experience: A nationwide survey in a low/middle income country
Marwa M Zein, Noha Arafa, Mortada H F El-Shabrawi, Nehal Mohammed El-Koofy
Marwa M Zein, Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Cairo University, Cairo 515211, Egypt
Noha Arafa, Department of Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes, Children's Hospital, Kasralainy Medical School, Cairo University, Cairo 515211, Egypt
Mortada H F El-Shabrawi, Department of Pediatrics, Cairo University, Cairo 12411, Egypt
Nehal Mohammed El-Koofy, Department of Pediatrics, The Children's Hospital, Cairo University, Cairo 12411, Egypt
Author contributions: El-Koofy N designed the study; Zein MM and Arafa N participated in the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of the data, and drafted the initial manuscript; El-Shabrawi MHF and El-Koofy N revised the article critically for important intellectual content.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the scientific committee of the Public Health and Community Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, and was approved by the International Ethical committee at Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University No. 318-2023.
Informed consent statement: All study participants provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There are no conflicts of interest to report.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Noha Arafa, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes, Children's Hospital, Kasralainy Medical School, Cairo University, 5th El-Rasheedy Street, Cairo 515211, Egypt. noha.hussein@kasralainy.edu.eg
Received: October 21, 2023
Peer-review started: October 21, 2023
First decision: December 15, 2023
Revised: December 29, 2023
Accepted: February 18, 2024
Article in press: February 18, 2024
Published online: March 9, 2024
Processing time: 137 Days and 8.4 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Nowadays, diversity of sources of maternal nutritional education becomes a fact in the light of infodemics era. Evaluation of these sources and the method of their assessment is crucial to improve the practice. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first published study from Egypt evaluating this problem in spite of its significance in this low/middle income country.

Research motivation

Healthcare providers, family members, mass media, and social media are different sources of maternal information. Technology enables faster delivery of information but cannot guarantee acquiring the right information. The results of the current study will help to innovate novel strategies to improve maternal awareness for proper evaluation and selection of the suitable material offered to them through different sources.

Research objectives

To assess the healthy nutritional knowledge and nutrition related myths among a large sample of Egyptian mothers, and to determine the sources of these information and how those mothers mange the sources of nutritional related knowledge.

Research methods

This cross-sectional analytical observational study enrolled 5148 randomly selected Egyptian mothers who had one or more children less than 15 years old. The data were collected through online questionnaire forms: One was for the general nutrition knowledge assessment, and the other was for the nutritional myth score. Sources of information and ways of evaluating internet sources using the Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose test were additionally analyzed.

Research results

The main source of maternal nutrition knowledge was social media platforms (55%). Half of the mothers managed information for currency and authority, except for considering the author's contact information. The mothers with higher nutrition knowledge checked periodically for the author's contact information (P = 0.012). The nutrition myth score was significantly lower among mothers who periodically checked the evidence of the information (P = 0.016). Mothers dependent on their healthcare providers as the primary source of their general nutritional knowledge were less likely to hold myths by 13% (P = 0.044). However, using social media increased the likelihood of having myths among mothers by 1.2 (P = 0.001).

Research conclusions

In the era of infodemics, social media platforms are the principal source of nutrition information, with more than 50% of mothers managing information currency and authority. Health care providers, as sources of nutritional information, are the only source of information, decreasing the myth incidence among mothers.

Research perspectives

The online survey involved only mothers who could access the internet, which limited the conclusion. Future research, including all mothers, is needed to help identify the different sources and barriers of nutritional myths and knowledge among different socioeconomic levels.