Nutritional Knowledge of Residents of the City of Caxias do Sul-RS, Brazil.

Introduction: Nutritional knowledge is the understanding of the concepts and processes of nutrition and health, including combinations of knowledge about diet and health, diet and diseases, nutritional sources, and dietary recommendations. Objective: To assess the nutritional knowledge of the population from Caxias do Sul and investigate their associations with sociodemographic and anthropometric data. Methods: Cross-sectional study including residents of Caxias do Sul, between 18 and 80 years old. Through an online questionnaire, sociodemographic and anthropometric data were collected. To evaluate the nutritional knowledge, sections 2 and 4 from GNKQ (General Nutrition Knowledge Questionnaire for adults) were used. The 26 questions had several items and each item marked correctly received 1 point, totaling 57 possible points. The nutritional knowledge was classified as low (up to 19 points), medium (between 20 and 38 points) and high (above 39 points). Results: The sample nutritional knowledge was 39.9 ± 6.1 points. Most of the participants were classified as high nutritional knowledge (n=184; 61.1%, average 43.8 ± 3.6 points). There was a statistical difference between gender (p<0.001), income (p=0.009), schooling (p=0.015) and nutrition students or dietitians (p<0.001). Women, people with higher income and schooling, as well as nutrition students or dietitians demonstrated higher nutritional knowledge. Conclusions: The sample of adults and older people from Caxias do Sul-RS has considerable nutritional knowledge, with a higher score between female participants, higher income, higher level of education, and nutrition students or dietitians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]