Parental Knowledge and Awareness of Childhood Urinary Tract Infections: A Cross Sectional Survey

Mohammed A Almatrafi; Lama Sindi; Malak Alshehri; Esraa Sendi; Ghufran Sindi; Ghaida Alzahrani; Joud Alwan; Emad Salawati; Hassan Alwafi; Faisal Minshawi; Rafat Mosalli; Mohammed Samannodi

doi:10.2147/PPA.S361313

Parental Knowledge and Awareness of Childhood Urinary Tract Infections: A Cross Sectional Survey

Patient Prefer Adherence. 2022 Sep 1:16:2423-2430. doi: 10.2147/PPA.S361313. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pediatrics, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia.
² Medical College of Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia.
³ Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
⁴ Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ Department of Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia.
⁶ Department of Medicine, College of Medicine, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

Background: Parent's misconceptions or lack of knowledge about childhood urinary tract infections (UTIs) can negatively impact their children's health. Therefore, the present study aimed to determine the childhood urinary tract infections awareness and understanding among parents in Saudi Arabia.

Patients and methods: An online validated cross-sectional survey of parents in Saudi Arabia was conducted from August to September 2021. Study participants who met the inclusion criteria were selected using a convenience sampling technique. A questionnaire with two domains was used to assess parental awareness of childhood urinary tract infection symptoms, complications, treatment, prevention, epidemiology, and diagnosis. The total childhood urinary tract infections awareness scores were classified into three categories: low awareness, moderate awareness, and high awareness. Descriptive statistics were used to determine the data distribution. A chi-square test was used to evaluate the relationship between parental awareness about urinary tract infections in children and other variables. Statistical significance was established at 0.05.

Results: Of the 1688 parents who completed the survey, 1289 (76.4%) were female, 1581 (93.7%) were married, and 1161 (68.8) had a university degree. Parent's total awareness scores were high; however, individual domain scores indicate a moderate level of knowledge. Statistically significant relationship were observed between total awareness and gender, occupation, and level of educational level ((P=0.004, P=0.001, P=0.007, respectively). Another statistically significant relationship was noted between the history of urinary tract infections and awareness of disease prevention (P=0.009).

Conclusion: In Saudi Arabia, parental knowledge about childhood urinary tract infections is moderate to high. However, future studies are needed to investigate gender, educational, and occupational variations in childhood UTI knowledge among parents in Saudi Arabia.

Keywords: awareness; childhood; parents; urinary tract infections.

Grants and funding

There is no funding to report.