Awareness of the dietary fibre intake (DF) and its importance in prevention and management of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) among rural people is seldom reported in Malaysia. This study aimed to determine the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of DF intake and their association with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) among rural people in Terengganu, Malaysia. A community-based cross-sectional study was carried out among the households in Kampung Jati, Kuala Nerus, Terengganu, Malaysia from 29th December 2019 until 20th February 2020. The village has 524 houses, the data was collected from all available and eligible subjects in each household by completed socio-demographic, validated KAP on DF intake questionnaire, as well as a 24-hour dietary recall using a self-administered questionnaire. In our study of 396 respondents, 208 (52.5%) were men. The mean age of participants was 37.85 (15.13). Most of the subjects were Malay 384 (97.0%), employed 207 (52.3%) and 274 (69.2%) attained high level of education (from tertiary school level). However, only 170 (42.9%) had a high family income which was of >RM 3860 per month. Out of 396 respondents, 157 (39.6%) of them had family history of diabetes mellitus. Respondents had moderate knowledge (39.1%), positive attitude (88.1%) and good practice (59.3%) scores towards DF intake. Among the respondents, only 39.1% of total respondents knew the nationally recommended amount of daily fibre intake which is of 20-30 grams per day. With multivariable analysis using multiple logistic regression, the analysis results revealed that age (adjusted OR: 1.11, 95% CI: 1.08, 1.15; p <0.001), having family history of T2DM (adjusted OR: 6.81, 95% CI: 2.75, 16.84; p <0.001) and having total attitude scores (adjusted OR: 0.84, 95% CI: 0.76, 0.93; p <0.001) were found to be adjusted significant associated factors of T2DM among the respondents after controlling confounders. Public health authorities should raise awareness on health benefit of consuming dietary fibre to promote an increase in consumption which can help in prevention and management of chronic diseases among rural population of Malaysia.

Secondhand smoke (SHS) carries many health risks and is associated with diseases and premature deaths among nonsmoking adults and children. Despite many health promotions and legislative measures executed by the government to protect the public from SHS, the prevalence of SHS exposure is still high. Personal appropriate practices to avoid exposure are crucial especially at home or private area. Therefore, the current study focused on describing individual preventive practices on SHS and determining its associated factors. A cross sectional study was conducted among 250 adults in a village, Kuala Terengganu. Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to determine the association between all independent variables and the SHS preventive practice status. The prevalence of SHS exposure was 66.0%. Majority of the respondents (77.2%) has good knowledge on SHS. Nevertheless, despite having good knowledge, a large proportion of them showed poor attitude toward SHS (77.6%) and poor preventive practices (61.2%). Poor preventive practices on SHS were significantly associated with being older (OR­adj: 1.0206, 95% CI: 1.0004, 1.0412), female (OR­adj: 2.0644, 95% CI: 1.0753, 3.9635), smoker (OR­adj: 12.1107, 95% CI: 4.0630, 36.0991), not having existing tobacco-related morbidity (OR­adj: 3.6795, 95% CI: 1.1795, 11.4786), and poor attitude towards SHS (OR­adj: 4.1871, 95% CI: 2.0955, 8.3665). The preventive practices of SHS among the villagers were poor despite showing acceptable level of knowledge. Hence, health awareness on the potential impact of SHS to the public as well as instilling appropriate behavior for them to avoid SHS and educate smokers need to be emphasized.