{Reference Type}: Journal Article
{Title}: Dietary practice and nutritional status and the respective effect of pulses-based nutrition education among adolescent girls in Northwest Ethiopia: a cluster randomized controlled trial.
{Author}: Mekonnen FA;Biks GA;Azale T;Mengistu NW;
{Journal}: Front Nutr
{Volume}: 10
{Issue}: 0
{Year}: 2023
{Factor}: 6.59
{DOI}: 10.3389/fnut.2023.1102106
{Abstract}: <B>UNASSIGNED: </B>Thinness and stunting are the most severe public health problems among adolescent girls in Ethiopia. An inadequate intake of protein-source foods is the most critical cause, mainly due to the non-affordability of animal-origin foods. However, research into what extent improving pulses-based food consumption could contribute to decreasing the magnitude of protein-energy undernutrition is limited.<BR><B>UNASSIGNED: </B>This trial aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of pulses-based nutrition education in reducing the proportion of thinness among adolescent girls.<BR><B>UNASSIGNED: </B>A two-arm cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted among adolescent girls in Northwest Ethiopia from December 2021 to June 2022. A total of 602 adolescent girls from four schools were enrolled in the trial. Schools were assigned to intervention and control groups using the stratified cluster randomization method. Pulses-based nutrition education was the intervention, whereas the usual dietary practice of adolescent girls was the comparator. The education was delivered over 4 weeks on a 45-60-min session per week basis. Thinness was the primary outcome of the trial, measured by anthropometry. An intention-to-treat analysis method was used. A log-binomial regression model was fitted to the data. Relative risk with the respective confidence interval and value of p was calculated. A value of p < 0.05 was used to declare statistical significance. Stata 16 software was used for the analysis.<BR><B>UNASSIGNED: </B>About 89.37% of the participants in the intervention group and 92.36% in the control group completed the trial. The pulses-based nutrition education intervention did not show a significant difference in reducing the proportion of thinness among the participants in the intervention group compared to the participants in the control group even though a significant difference was observed in terms of the consumption of pulses-based food.<BR><B>UNASSIGNED: </B>The present trial was statistically non-significant in reducing thinness among adolescent girls. Similar studies that utilize objective methods for ascertaining pulses-based food consumption need to be conducted.Clinical trial registration: https://pactr.samrc.ac.za/Search.aspx, the trial was registered in the Pan African Clinical Trials Registry (PACTR202111605102515) on November 12, 2021.