| BackgroundHand foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is a common infectious disease affecting the health of infants and young children. Most patients show the main features of such symptoms as fever and rash or herpes in hand, foot and oral cavity, while a few patients may have the complications of aseptic meningitis, encephalitis, acute flaccid paralysis, respiratory infections and myocarditis. Only very few of them may quickly develop into severe disease and are prone to death. In recent years, although this disease has been controlled in Linyi City and surrounding regions to some extent, it remains epidemic in some local areas, which causes great effect on the families of HFMD children, increases public risks and wastes the medical resourses in this area, therefore, it is necessary to take active measures to prevent and treat the disease. Health education is recognized as the most effective, scientific and economical means to prevent and control HFMD. Parents of children with HFMD have the responsibility and obligation to understand and master the knowledge of the prevention of HFMD. Therefore, carrying out the study on health education and the ananlysis of influencing factors can have great significance in preventing and controlling HFMD.ObjectivesThe purposes of this study are to survey the overall situation of health education for parents of HFMD infants or children and the main ways of getting the knowledge of HFMD the parents of children with HFMD in Linyi City, to explore the influencing factors and the models of efficient health education and to study the way to raise the efficiency of HFMD health education so aso to provide a theoretical basis FOR HFMD health education.Rearch MethodsQuantitative and qualitative research methods are both used in this study to collect, process and analyze the data. Qualitative researches include personal interviews and focus group interviews. Stratified cluster random sampling method was adopted to sort the counties and districts of Linyi City according to the social and geographical distribution of population to locate the different distribution areas of popular degrees (high, moderate and low). Three counties or districts were sampled from each type of distribution area, the the sampled counties or districts were classified into three grades of good, fair and poor preventions, one small towns was sampled from each grade, and three villages were randomly surveyed from each small town. The parents surveyed in this research were all from the parents of HFMD infants or children registered in Linyi City from January,2009to September,2011. The self-designed questionnaires were used to conduct the health education surveys. The influencing factors were analyzed and the findings underwent statistical analysis with SPSS17.0.Main Findings1. Qualitative Findingsa. Most of the surveyed parents of HFMD infants or children had high literacy and had some knowledge about the spread of HFMD, but they showed little knowledge about the causativeagents and the ways to prevent the disease. Although they had some knowledge about the infectoiusness of the disease and might take some measures to prevent it, they knew little about the sources of infection or the main route of HFMD spread.b. Parents’knowledge about HFMD was found mainly got from chatting, the Net, TV and medical staff.c. Some patients did not get early treatment from the appointed medical therapy units due to their parents’ignorance of the disease.d. The following are the main factors that affected Heakth education:lack of diverse models of health education, rich content and communiaction skills; lack of cooperation between different media for health education; Poor accessibilty of health education activities.2. Quantitative Findingsa. The research found that98.83%of the surveyed parents had heard of HFMD, and92.71%of them kmew that the disease was infectious. Only38.08%of them knew the main causative factors of HFMD, and58.57%of them knew some effective ways to prevent the disease.b. The main ways of getting the knowledge of HFMD was from chatting, medical staff and contacts with patients’relatives. Some people got the information from reports of TV, the Net, newspapers and some leaflets.37.63%,17.19%,13.28%and12.11%of the surveyed respectively believed that lectures from medical staff, the health programs of TVand newspaper, the online information from mobile phones and leaflets were the main source of information about HFMD.c. The need for HFMD information from parents of HFMD infants or children mainly focused on the measures of sterilization and isolation. The secondary needs were the basic understanding of the disease, the knowledge of prevention, the procees of diagnosis and treatment and diagnosis.90%of them believed that the knowledge about the measues of sterilization and isolation and about the preventive measures was the most needed.d. The influencing factors of the knowledge of the parents of HFMD infants or children mainly included age, sex and literacy. Those who were female, had finished junior high school programs and had their age between19and30were found to have a little more knowledge about HFMD.Conclusion and SuggestionsThe parents of HFMD children have some knowledge about the disease, but the degree of their awareness should be further promoted, especially in terms of the causative factors of HFMD. The residents get the the knowledge about the disease mainly through personal chats, from medical staff and the relatives of patients. The education ways mainly include TV progroms, newspapers, magazines, health columns, lectures given by medical staff, leaflets and message from the Internet. People’s knowledge about HFMD and the effect of health education are affected by many factors mainly including sex, age and literacy.Health education programs should be conducted according to the different needs of the parents of HFMD infants or children through the combined use of traditional methods and modern mass media to get flexible models of health education to spread the knowledge of HFMD. The methods or ways that are familiar to the parents of HFMD children should be used fir its easy acceptance so as to spread the relative information. Local government should increase the public health budget and coordinate the efforts of different sections. |
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