Conhecimento dos enfermeiros atuantes na atenção primária, Fortaleza-Ceará, acerca da alimentação infantil de crianças menores de dois anos

Abstract

Brazil is now facing a food transition with the advent of nutritional disorders, which can trigger the potential and drastic risk factors predisposing to chronic non-communicable diseases. Thus, it is up to the nurses to use the child care consultation as a space with great learning potential, where through verbal orientations and use of educational strategies, mothers and families can be guided in the care of the child's feeding, Early, a healthy lifestyle for this. However, to act effectively, it becomes pertinent that the nurse be updated about the various aspects of infant feeding. Therefore, the objective of this study was to analyze the knowledge of nurses working in primary care on infant feeding for children under two years of age. This is a descriptive, cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach between July and September 2016, approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Ceará. The data were collected through a validated questionnaire, which addresses the profile of the professional and their knowledge on the subject. 231 nurses working in the Primary Health Care Units (UAPS) of the six Regional Executive Secretariats (SER) of the Municipality of Fortaleza/CE participated in this study. The data were tabulated and analyzed with the aid of the SPSS, being considered as significant p <0.05. The nurses in the sample were predominantly female and aged between 36 and 42 years, had specialization / residency as a degree and had been working for more than 10 years in the Family Health Strategy. 65.4% of the sample obtained knowledge at the secondary level and only 18.2% presented high knowledge. When crossing some social and professional variables with the knowledge about infant feeding, it was verified that only the knowledge of the Ten Steps Manual for healthy eating (p = 0.006) presented significant relevance. It can be concluded that the analyzed nurses presented deficits in the knowledge related to the topic. The identification of these gaps can guide managers and nurses themselves to seek strategies for their improvement in this area through constant updating, recurrent evaluation of