Hubungan Pengetahuan, Sikap, dan Perilaku Ibu tentang Penggunaan Pewarna Makanan dengan Keracunan Makanan pada Anak di Kelurahan Penggaron Lor Semarang

Household and school are the two most frequent sites in which food poisoning outbreak starts. This may be influenced by the lack of mother’s knowledge about the danger of synthetic food colorants for health. This study was conducted to analyze the relationship between the knowledge, attitude, and practice on food colorants among mothers and the incidence of headache and diarrhea as signs of food poisoning in their elementary school children in Penggaron Lor Village. This study was an cross sectional observational analytic study with involving 70 mothers whose children are IV, V and VI grade students . Data on knowledge, attitude, and practice on food collorants and the incident of headache or diarrhea were collected using a questionnaire on January–May 2014. The chi-square test results showed that the incidence of headache or diarrhea in children was not related to the mother’s knowledge, attitude, and behavior on food colorants (p>0.05). In conclusion, the rise of the incidence of diarrhea or headache in children is not only caused by the mother’s lack of knowledge, attitude, and practice on food colorants but also other factors, i.e food flavor, borax, formalin, or processing errors. [MKB. 2016;48(4):187–93