Effect of a Teaching Program on Mother’s Knowledge and Practice of Children with Intestinal Parasitic Infection,GEHAN MOUSTAFA ISMAIL and HANAN MOHAMAD RASHAD
Abstract
Intestinal Parasitic infection is a major health problem in many countries and represents a huge burden on families and societies. Intestinal Parasitic education is an essential compo-nent of parasitic infection control and should be offered to all children and their mothers. The aim of this study was to design, implement and evaluate the effect of a heath teaching program about intestinal parasitic infection control on knowl-edge and practice of mothers of children with intestinal parasitic infection. Quasi-experimental study was utilized. The study was carried out in Pediatrics clinic at the Maternal Child Health Centre in Misr El-Kadyma region, Cairo Gov-ernorate. Sixty-two mothers of children aged from 1-6 years with intestinal parasitic infection were included in this study. Tool for data collection: 1) Structured interview sheet, a, sociodemographic data about the child and his/her parents, b, data about intestinal parasitic infection history and c, home and environmental data. 2) Pre-posttest was used to test the hypotheses that mother's knowledge and practice will be improved after the teaching interventions. Results revealed that, the types of intestinal parasitic infection among children were Giardia lamblia (48.3%), Entamoeba histolytica (19.4%) and pin worm (32.3%). Results supported the research hy-potheses where most of mothers in the study group had higher knowledge scores compared to mothers in control groups with statistical significant difference between both groups. Results also revealed that, about two third of mothers in the study group had higher practices scores compared to the control groups with statistical significant difference between both groups. Based on the study results, it is recommended to raise awareness of mothers regarding prevention of all parasitic infection especially the most common parasitic infectious diseases among the preschool age group, as well as a crucial teaching intervention for the already diagnosed pre-school children with parasitic infection strongly recommended and assessment of home environment should be considered through community heath nurses working in maternal child health centers.