Association of maternal education and socioeconomic status with knowledge, attitude, and practice of her child regarding acute respiratory infections

Abstract

Background: The proportion of death due to ARI in the community is much higher as many children die at home. ARI is also an important cause of morbidity in the children across world, with an average about 5 episodes of ARI per child per year so accounting for about 238 million attacks. Medical records of states with high infant mortality rate show that up to 13% of inpatient deaths in pediatric wards are due to ARI. Objectives: The objectives are to find the association between socioeconomic status with maternal knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP), to find the association of maternal education with child KAP, and to find the association of maternal education with maternal KAP. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out among the secondary high school children Azad High School, Kasegaon, to find the relationship between maternal education and socioeconomic status on KAP of mother and her child regarding acute respiratory infections. A pre-structured and pretested questionnaire was used to get the information regarding definition, causes, signs, symptoms, treatment, and prevention of respiratory illness. Results: Nearly 68% of the mothers completed school education, 6.8% had college education, and 37% were illiterate mothers. As per the occupation, 54.7% were farmers, 23.6% were labors, 12.8% were housewives, and 8.8% were professionals. Most of the families were belonging to middle class, i.e., 72.3%, 25.7% to lower class, and 2% to upper class. Conclusion: Maternal socioeconomic class and maternal education have an important role in the KAP of her children regarding acute respiratory infections.