Discussion
In this study, we investigated the level and determinants of maternal knowledge, attitude and self-efficacy toward complementary feeding (CF). Even though Ethiopia has attempted to improve complementary feeding, its success has been limited. To the best of our knowledge, there are only a few studies that have used validated questionnaires to assess complementary feeding knowledge and attitude in Ethiopia. However, there is no single study conducted to assess complementary feeding self-efficacy among mothers. Therefore, the baseline survey provides a novel insight into the study of complementary feeding self-efficacy among mothers in addition to knowledge and attitude. Hence, the evidence generated from this study is particularly important for planning appropriate nutrition interventions that can potentially improve child feeding practices and, thus, children’s growth and survival.The results of this study suggest that maternal educational status, number of antenatal care visits, and receiving complementary feeding information were significant predictors of knowledge about complementary feeding. Maternal educational level, number of antenatal care visits, and having a female child were found to be significant predictors of attitude towards complementary feeding. Additionally, family size and household food security status were significant predictors of maternal self-efficacy regarding complementary feeding. These findings highlight the importance of maternal education, healthcare utilization, and household factors in influencing knowledge, attitude, and self-efficacy towards complementary feeding.The pertinent finding of this study was that more than half (52.5%) of the mothers had high knowledge about CF. Our finding is similar to the (52.0%) mothers with high knowledge reported in Ghana [An important finding of this study was that an increase in maternal educational status is associated with an increase in complementary feeding knowledge. This may be explained by the fact that literate mothers can understand the nutrition message disseminated by health professionals or other sources of information. This study is in line with the studies conducted in northwestern Ethiopia [Maternal attitude is the most important psychometric variable that predicts optimum complementary feeding. This study revealed that below half (47.7%) of the mothers had a favorable attitude towards complementary feeding. This result was lower than the study conducted in northwestern Ethiopia [This study also revealed that maternal attitude is associated with child sex. The finding of this study is in congruence with a study conducted in Rwanda [Maternal self-efficacy toward complementary feeding is another important psychometric variable that this study tried to investigate. The findings of this study further affirm that the mothers in the study area had low self-efficacy (61.1%). The finding of this study is much lower than the study conducted in Bangladesh [Another important finding of this study was that as family size increased within one unit, self-efficacy decreased by a factor of 0.28. This is because as the number of families in resource limited setting increases, it imposes difficulties to maintain the recommended optimum complementary feeding. This finding is in congruence with a studies done in Ghana [