engleski

Knowledge about sources of dietary fibres and health effects using a validated scale: a cross-country study

Objectives: Dietary fibre is one of the components of diet that strongly contributes to health improvements, particularly on the gastro-intestinal system. Hence, this work intended to evaluate the relations between some socio-demographic variables such as age, gender, level of education, living environment or country on the levels of knowledge about dietary fibre, its sources and its effects on human health, using a validated scale. Study design: The present study was a cross sectional study. Methods: A methodological study was conducted with 6010 participants, residing in ten countries from different continents (Europe, America, Africa). The instrument was a questionnaire of self response, aimed at collecting information on knowledge about food fibres. The instrument was used to validate a scale (KADF: knowledge about dietary fibres) which model was used in the present work to identify the best predictors of knowledge. The statistical tools used were: basic descriptive statistics, decision trees, inferential analysis (t-test for independent samples with Levene’ test and one-way ANOVA with multiple comparisons post-hoc tests). Results: The results showed that the best predictor for the three types of knowledge evaluated (about dietary fibre, about its sources and about its effects on human health) was always the country, meaning that the social, cultural and/or political conditions greatly determine the level of knowledge. On the other hand, the tests also showed that statistically significant differences were encountered regarding the three types of knowledge for all socio-demographic variables evaluated: age, gender, level of education, living environment and country. Conclusions: the results showed that to improve the level of knowledge the actions planed should not be delineated in general as to reach all sectors of the populations, and that in addressing different people, different methodologies must be designed so as to an effective health education.

dietary fibre ; health benefits ; sources of fibre ; survey

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