WORLD JOURNAL OF ADVANCE
HEALTHCARE RESEARCH

Safanah Ghassan Al-Chalabi, Eman Adnan Al-Kaseer and *Monaf Faik Al-Samarraee

ABSTRACT

Background: Primary health care providers must acquire and regularly update the appropriate knowledge during their medical school and continued practice to deliver clear and correct dietary advice to their patients. Aim of study: To evaluate the knowledge, attitudes, and practices about healthy nutrition among a sample of primary health care physicians in Baghdad, and to examine the factors that may influence these scores. Methods: A cross-sectional study including analytical components was performed in 40 primary health care centers in Baghdad from November 1, 2024, to April 1, 2025. It comprised 224 healthcare physicians employed in basic health care centers. Data was gathered by a self-administered questionnaire comprising five sections: Participants' socio-demographic attributes, knowledge, attitudes, and practices on nutrition, as well as the primary obstacles to effective healthy nutrition counselling. Results: In this study, 43.8% of participants had good level of knowledge, 67.9% showed positive attitudes, and 38.8% were with good practices. Physicians who had good level of knowledge were significantly younger, more experienced in primary health care centers, family physicians, those who finished higher education, who had private sector experiences, and those who depend on academic resources as a source of information. Family physicians and physicians who finished higher education had significantly more positive attitudes for healthy nutrition. Physicians who had a significantly good level of practice were young, family physicians, physicians who finished higher education, and those who had private sector experiences. Conclusion: More than half of the primary health care physicians had fair or poor levels of knowledge about healthy nutrition; two thirds of them demonstrated a positive attitude towards the role of nutrition in health, and about only one third of them exhibited good nutrition-related practices.