The relationship between socio-economic factors and parenting styles with the incidence of stunting in children

Background: Stunting in children under three years of age tends to be caused by problems with meeting economic needs and poor quality of parenting in the family. This study aims to analyze the relationship between socioeconomic factors and parenting style on the incidence of stunting in infants with the approach of family-centered nursing theory. Methods: This study used a cross-sectional design with a sample size of 100 respondents obtained using purposive sampling. The independent variable of this study was the socio-economic factor and parenting style and the dependent variable was the incident of stunting. Data were collected by questionnaire and analyzed the Spearman rank test with a significant value of p<0.05. Results: The result of this study showed that there was a relationship between social factors (education) and stunting (p=0.026, r= 0.223). In this study, it showed that there was no relationship between economic factors with stunting incidents (p=0.784, r=0.028) and parenting style with stunting incidents both democratic (p=0.501, r=0.068), authoritative (p=0.754, r=-0.032) and permissive (p=0.691, r=-0.040). Conclusion: It can be concluded that social factors (education) are very influential on the incidence of stunting. Parenting and nutritional status are strongly influenced by the understanding of mothers in regulating health and nutrition in their families. Therefore, education is needed to be able to change behaviors that can lead to improved health nutrition on mother and child.