Knowledge and perception of pneumonai Disease among Mothers of Children under Five years attending Nakhon pathom General Hospital, Thailand

Abstract

A hospital based cross sectional study was conducted to describe socio-demographic factors of mothers' mother's knowledge and mother's perception of pneumonia disease. Study was conducted at Nakhon Pathom General Hospital, Thailand period 22to 30 January 2007 by interviewing 140 mothers of children under five years attending a pediatric clinic by using structured questionnaire. This study found mothers were predominantly primary school graduates (37.14%). the majority worked as laborer (39.29%) with medium level of family income per month (87.86%). Around 66% of the mothers had fair knowledge about pneumonia. From this result, it was found that only a few mothers answered all the questions correctly in terms of simple signs and symptoms of pneumonia (7 %) and around 21% of the mothers answered all the the questions correctly in terms of cause and factors related with pneumonia . Around 81 % of the mothers had good perception and good perception and only a small number of mothers gave correct answers for all the statements. which was only 7% of all the mothers. Finally, no significant associations were found among the occurrence of pneumonia, mother's perception. The lack of knowledge mothers about simple sings and symptoms of pneumonia, and also the lack of knowledge about its of knowledge about its causes and factors related with pneumonia become important findings of this study. The perception of perceived benefits became dominant among all the perception's dimensions of the four found in this study. Community based public health education and training for health providers at all levels about correct and applicable prevention and assessments of pneumonia and other dangerous diseases should be promoted to ensure better transfer knowledge, better perception and better health practices in the community.