A Comparative Study on the Diet Quality of Pregnant Women in Urban and Rural Settings in a South-Western District of Bangladesh

Purpose: The current study aimed to assess the diet quality of urban and rural pregnant women in a south-western district (Jashore) in Bangladesh.

Methodology: It was a cross-sectional study which was conducted among pregnant women (Sample size, N= 154). The respondents were selected from urban and rural areas of Jashore district. Data was collected through a pre-tested questionnaire comprising of socio-demographic and economic data, data on different food groups consumption. The data concerning food consumption was used to assess the diet quality of the respondents. For statistical analysis, IBM SPSS Statistics version 21.0 was used in the study.

Results: Among all the respondents, mean Dietary Diversity Score (DDS) was 5.40±0.96. It was also seen that minimum DDS was 3.0 and maximum DDS was 7.0 among all the pregnant women. A significant difference was observed between the mean DDS of urban and rural pregnant women (P < .05). The mean DDS of urban pregnant women was 6.46±0.19 and mean DDS of rural

pregnant women was 4.61±0.56. Moreover, about 62% of urban respondents’ diet quality was of high level, 27% of urban respondents’ diet was of medium-quality and about 11% of urban respondents were found to have low diet quality. On the other hand, only 18% of rural respondents had high diet quality, 57% had a medium-quality diet and about 25% of rural pregnant women were found to have a low diet quality.

Conclusion: It can be concluded from the study that the majority of the urban pregnant women of the study area had a higher quality diet than their rural counterparts.