Abstract
Background/Objectives: Maternal nutrition during pregnancy exerts a significant influence on both maternal and foetal health, as well as long-term child development. Despite its importance, adherence to dietary guidelines among pregnant women remains low. The present study aimed to develop and validate the Italian Pregnancy Nutrition Knowledge Questionnaire (ItPreNKQ), based on national dietary guidelines for the pregnant Italian population, assessing its reliability and validity. Methods: The ItPreNKQ comprised 15 questions covering key topics on nutrition during pregnancy. The questionnaire was validated through item analysis (difficulty and discrimination indices), construct validity, internal consistency, and reliability tests. Results: A total of 145 pregnant Italian women participated in the study. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed through a Pearson's correlation of R = 0.790 and a Cronbach's alpha of 0.682, indicating strong temporal stability and acceptable internal consistency. Despite good overall performance, the mean knowledge score was 10.6 ± 2.5 out of 15, indicating significant knowledge gaps in specific topics. Conclusions: The ItPreNKQ has been demonstrated to be a reliable and valid tool for the assessment of nutrition knowledge among pregnant Italian women. The tool could be used for assessing nutritional knowledge in prenatal education settings and could be administered in future studies aimed at evaluating the impact of nutritional interventions among pregnant women.