ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Clinical Nutrition
Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices of Caregivers of Functionally disabled older adults Regarding Nutritional Management
Provisionally accepted
- Guangdong Province Work Injury Rehabilitation Hospital, Guangzhou, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Objective: This study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of caregivers of functionally disabled older adults regarding nutritional management. Methods: A multicenter cross-sectional survey was conducted on caregivers of functionally disabled older adults between April and June 2025 across Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hunan Province, utilizing an online questionnaire to collect demographic information and evaluate knowledge and practice scores. In this study, caregiver burden measured by the Zarit Burden Interview Short Form (ZBI-12) was defined as the attitudinal construct within the KAP framework. Structural equation model (SEM) was constructed to evaluate the interrelationships among the KAP. Results: A total of 550 valid responses were included, yielding an effective response rate of 86.21%. The majority of respondents were female (71.09%). The mean knowledge, attitude, and practice scores were 15.30±6.23 (possible range: 0-24), 18.53±10.01 (possible range: 0-48), and 33.44±7.01 (possible range: 9-45), respectively. SEM indicated significant associations from knowledge to attitude (β = -0.478, P = 0.015) and practice (β = 0.589, P = 0.018), and from attitude to practice (β = -0.286, P = 0.011). In addition, knowledge showed an indirect association with practice through attitude (β = 0.137, P = 0.007). Conclusion: Caregivers of functionally disabled older adults demonstrated limited knowledge, moderate attitudes, and proactive practices in nutritional management. Intervention strategies should prioritize targeted educational support that enhances caregivers' nutritional knowledge while simultaneously addressing attitudinal barriers and caregiver burden to optimize caregiving behaviors.
Keywords: Caregivers, Functionally Disabled Persons, Nutritional management, Knowledge, attitudes, practice, Cross-sectional study
Received: 07 Jul 2025; Accepted: 24 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jia, Guo, Tian, Li, Cao and Shang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yanping Shang, mylovesyp@163.com
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.