Knowledge attitude and behaviours towards dietary salt in a selected slum population in Bangladesh

Background: Slum population of Bangladesh has higher tendency of taking excessive dietary salt. As one of the potential risk factors of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), it wasn’t clear about their knowledge and attitude regarding dietary salt along with behaviours. Objective: The current study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitude and behaviours (KABs) towards dietary salt among slum population of Bangladesh. Methods: It was a cross-sectional study, conducted among 192 adults of a purposively selected slum in Dhaka City. The respondents were selected conveniently. A semi-structured questionnaire was used for data collection which was developed with the help of WHO Modified Salt Module of STEPS Questionnaire. Descriptive statistics was used to explore the KABs regarding dietary salt. Results: Men respondents dominated (72.4%), and the mean age of the respondents was 37.0±13.6 years. Study found more than three in every five respondents (61.9%) believed too much salt could cause serious health problem. More than four in every five respondents (82.8%) perceived they were used to consume salt as just the right amount and one-fourth (26.0%) perceived it is very important to lower the salt consumption. Yet, 58.1% and 63.0% were used to take added salt during meal and to take high salt processed foods (on the basis of always+often+sometimes users). Conclusion: Study didn’t found strong positive knowledge and attitude towards dietary salt, resulted substantial gap between knowledge and attitude with behaviours.