Hubungan Pemahaman Agama Islam dan Perilaku Pengasuhan dengan Risiko Stunting pada Balita di Kabupaten Mamuju

Abstract

Stunting is a multidimensional child-growth problem shaped by biological, social, environmental, and family-behavior factors. This study examined the relationships of Islamic religious understanding and Islamic parenting behavior with a composite stunting-risk indicator among families with children under five in Mamuju Regency. A cross-sectional correlational design involved 150 parents or primary caregivers from five health-center service areas, with 30 respondents from each area, and data were collected from January to April 2025. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlations, multiple linear regression, and HC3 robust standard errors. Islamic religious understanding was positively correlated with Islamic parenting behavior (r = 0.269, p = 0.001) and weakly negatively correlated with the stunting-risk indicator (r = -0.171, p = 0.037). Islamic parenting behavior was not correlated with the stunting-risk indicator (r = -0.053, p = 0.522). In the simultaneous regression model, the coefficient for religious understanding was negative but not robust after HC3 adjustment (β = -0.169; p OLS = 0.047; p HC3 = 0.120), while parenting behavior remained nonsignificant (β = -0.007; p OLS = 0.932; p HC3 = 0.937). The model explained 2.9% of outcome variance. Thus, religious understanding was related to parenting behavior, but its relationship with the stunting-risk indicator was weak and sensitive to the estimation method, whereas the parenting score showed no statistical relationship with the outcome. Because the outcome was a composite score rather than a standard anthropometric diagnosis, the results should not be interpreted as evidence of stunting prevalence. Faith-sensitive education should therefore be integrated with nutrition, feeding practices, WASH, growth monitoring, and access to health services.