Parental Knowledge, attitude and practice about their children attending medical care at TASH regarding COVID-19 infection, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

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Date

2021-11

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Publisher

Addis Abeba University

Abstract

Background: Covid-19 is one of the global public health crises. Resource limited countries like Ethiopia are at risk of being severely affected by the pandemic. Children of all ages can be affected by the virus and are one of the burdens of Covid-19 pandemic. As children accounts for majority of the population in Ethiopia, early diagnosis and management of the disease is crucial to curb the spread of the disease. Parents have a significant role in children’s health. Hence the aim of this study is to assess parents’ knowledge, attitude and practice towards Covid-19 in children. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted at TASH located in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia from June to August 2021 G.C. Parents whose children were admitted at TASH and parents who came to pediatric regular OPD and referral clinics were used as a study population. An interview based questionnaire was used to gather information from study participants. Data was entered using SPSS version 25 to be analyzed based on the objectives of the study. A descriptive analysis was performed. Inferential statistics were investigated using a chi-square test. P value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Result: A total of 385 parents who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were enrolled. The finding of this study reveal that majority of the participants (68.6%) have moderate knowledge whereas 17.7% of participants have poor knowledge. Regarding attitude and practice of parents, 68.3% of participants have good attitude and 51.7% of participants have moderate practice. There was a moderate positive correlation between knowledge score and attitude score (r=0.56, p<0.001), between knowledge score and practice score (r=0.44, p<0.001) and between attitude score and practice score (r=0.43, p<0.001). Conclusion: The finding of this study suggests that knowledge and practice of parents of children attending medical care at TASH towards COVID-19 in children was moderate. Majority of the parents had good attitude. A considerable number of sociodemographic characteristics of participants affect the knowledge, attitude and practice of parents towards COVID-19 in children.

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Keywords

Parental Knowledge,Children,Medical care

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