Estimating the Knowledge and Attitude of Parents about their Children?s Asthma and Evaluating the Impact of their Education Status in Baghdad/ Iraq

Abstract

Background: Parents have an essential role in treating their children's asthma.Therefore, caregivers should gain large knowledge that enable them identifying the risk factor particular for each child and bypass them as a strategy for secondary prevention to controlasthma attacks.Methods:children diagnosed with asthma aged between 1-12 years who attend chest clinic in Baghdad hospitals,were included in this studyparental level of knowledge regarding asthma in childhood was assessed by application of 17-item asthma knowledge questionnaire (ANQ).During the study, the parents responded to eachitem on a Likert-type scale of 5 points with answers ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” Responses to each item were thus graded from 1 to 5 and greater weight was assigned to correct answers.Results:A total number of 260 parents have completed the questionnaire of asthma knowledge regarding their children, the age of children participants in this study ranged from 1 to 12 years with 56 (21.53%) with an age less than two years and a higher percentage was achieved by those who aged more than 3 years,with a male predominance over female by about 2.1:1. Duration of asthma since diagnosis ranged from 2 months to 11 years before beginning this study, with about half of children 126 (48.46%) present with symptoms between 1-2 years. The mean score for the first section (myths and beliefs regarding asthma) with regard to parents’ level of education showed higher knowledge score that was noted among groups with higher education, and, thus, was statistically significant (p=0.009). In the second section of the score (knowledge about asthma), the mean was greater for the groups of parents who completed their university studies (23.5 ± 3.2) and was statistically significant (p= 0.027).Conclusion: In this study there was a significant correlation between level of education of parents and score of AKQ, as the parents present with higher education can obtain knowledge easier, but despite of that most parents are highly educated but a lot of them were have misconception and lack of informationregardinguse if inhalers and factors that triggering asthma of their children which necessitate to provide more effective education programs