Muzamil Shabana Ejaz, Dure Samin Akram, Zarina Kausar.
`KAP` study of Mothers regarding Preventive Pediatric Practices in a Hospital Outpatient Department.
Pak Paed J Jan ;26(3):101-6.

Preventive counselling is an important aspect of medical management. It is meant for prevention of diseases and promotion of physical, mental and social wellbeing of children. It is the responsibility of health care providers to raise awareness of issues related to health care among the community members especially women. It is also important that knowledge, attitude and practices (KAP) of mothers and their sources of information should be determined for effective preventive counselling and health education. This study was conducted at the outpatient department of Civil Hospital Karachi from July to September 2001 to determine the Knowledge, attitude and practices of mothers regarding common preventive paediatric practices and their source of information was also determined. One hundred mothers with atleast four previous visits to the OPD were interviewed through a pre-designed proforma. It was found that about 58% of mothers received the knowledge from health care providers, 54% knew about the advantages of breast feeding, 45% knew the right age for starting complementary feeding and were also implementing the same. 53% were using ORS during diarrhoea. It was concluded that majority of mothers coming to this hospital OPD had knowledge about common paediatric problems and their prevention. It is required that health care providers and other resources should be further motivated for effective conunselling of mothers, who in turn will convey these messages in the community. In this way a `herd phenomenon` will develop for promotion of health education in the population. Medical students, paramedical staff, residents should be taught preventive paediatric practices so that it is implemented by them right from the beginning. Use of a `counselling card` should be promoted by the health care providers.

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