Knowledge and Practices of Households in South Kordofan, Sudan, with Regard to Iodine Deficiency Disorders and Intake of Iodized Salt

Abstract

The objective of this study was to assess the knowledge and practices of iodized salt intake and use by households in South Kordofan, with regard to iodine deficiency disorders. The focus of the study was on people who have role in making decision about which food and cooking material to be used in the home. A combination of cluster and simple random sampling techniques was used to select the respondents from all the districts in South Kordofan. A total sample of 380 households was interviewed. Analysis of the findings was carried out using SPSS and significance tested using χ2. Only 252 household heard about iodized salt. The results revealed that only 7.2% of respondents indicated that, they used iodized salt for cooking. The reason given by users of common salt was the price of iodized salt which is expensive than common salt and knowledge of iodized salt was relatively high, as 66.4% (20.3 % for male & 46.1% for female) of the respondents indicated that they had heard about iodized salt. Awareness about health benefits of iodized salt among female was extremely good than male (56.7%for female & 17.9 %for male respectively). 49.6% of the female stored their salt in Polythene bag, Also results shows that 41.1% of the respondents (9.9% for male and 30.2 for female) adding iodized salt at the end of cooking. The study found that 29.2% of the respondents had diagnosis with iodine deficiency disorders (IDD). There is an urgent need to increase efforts to using iodized salt and know the correct methods of conservation and add-on and existing laws and policies on universal salt iodization and quality assurance of iodized salt from the production stage to the distribution/selling stage had to be enforced.