Concordance of mother-child (6-23 month) dietary diversity and its associated factors in Kucha district, Gamo Gofa Zone, Southern Ethiopia: a community- based cross- sectional study

Background Meeting minimum standards of dietary quality in mothers and children is a challenge in many developing countries including Ethiopia. Emerging evidence suggests that maternal and child dietary diversity is associated but little is known about the associated factors of concordance of mother-child dietary diversity in Ethiopia and none is documented in the study area. This study examines the concordance between mother- child (6-23 months) dyads dietary diversity and the associated factors in Kucha district, Gamo Gofa zone, Southern Ethiopia. Methods A community based cross-sectional study was conducted among 791 mother- child (6-23 months) pairs from 11 selected kebeles in March 6 to April 13, 2017. Multi-stage cluster sampling technique was used to select the study subjects. The sampling frame was obtained from family folder of health posts in each kebele. The mother-child pairs were selected by simple random sampling method. The 7 food groups of World Health Organization (WHO) for children and the 10 food groups of FANTA/FAO, 2016 for mothers were used to analyze the dietary diversity. Cohen’s kappa statistics was calculated to see the strength of concordance. Multivariable logistic regression model was fitted to determine factors affecting mother-child dietary diversity concordance. Result A good concordance was noted between mother- child dietary diversity scores (Kappa = 0.43). Only 56 (7.1%) of mothers were negative deviants and 133 (16.8%) of mothers were positive deviants in dietary diversity consumption. Rural residence (AOR =3.49; 95% CI: 1.90-6.41), mothers having no formal education (AOR= 1.8; 95% CI: 1.08-3.05, mothers who did not own milking cow (AOR= 1.7; 95% CI: 1.10-2.56),children with low diversity diversity(AOR= 8.23; 95% CI: 5.17-13.08) and mothers with low dietary diversity (AOR= 0.46; 95% CI: 0.29-0.74) were found to be factors associated with mother-child dietary diversity concordance. An increase in the percentage of children reaching the minimum dietary diversity was greater with successive increase in maternal dietary diversity. Conclusion Despite, interesting similarity between mothers and children dietary consumption, more than three quarter of concordants didn’t achieve the recommended dietary diversity score (were low concordants). Interventions targeting on rural women’s access to high school education, home based milking cow rearing and promote nutrition sensitive agriculture to meet the dietary requirements of mothers and children in a sustainable manner and public health efforts to improve child nutrition may be strengthened by promoting maternal dietary diversity due to its potential effect on the entire family.