Revista de alergia y terapia

Abstracto

Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of Health Seeking Behaviours of Parents of Children with Allergic Rhinitis in Nigeria

Waheed Atilade Adegbiji, Gabriel Toye Olajide, Abdul Akeem Adebayo Aluko

Background: Allergic rhinitis is increasingly prevalent among children in developing countries.

The objective of this study was to determine the knowledge, attitude and practice of parents of children with allergic rhinitis and identify how their knowledge and attitudes relate to practices.

Materials and methods: This was a cross-sectional survey of the knowledge, attitude and practice of parents of children with allergic rhinitis in our center. Data were obtained using pretested interviewers assisted questionnaire. All data were collated, categorized and analyzed using SPSS version 18.0.

Results: The response rate was 84.3%. Only 11.8% parents were aware of allergic rhinitis in children. There were 37 (20.7%) males with male to female ratio was 1:3.8.

There was family history of allergic rhinitis in 56.4% children and 73.7% could not identify the trigger allergens. The commonest identified allergen was 19.0% Inhalant. Common manifestations in this study were 69.3% allergic rhinitis, 34.6% other ENT allergy and 33.5% allergic conjunctivitis.

Ear, nose and throat specialist/other doctors were the commonest sources of knowledge on allergic rhinitis 59.8%. Parental knowledge on awareness of allergic rhinitis in Nigeria and worldwide were 45.3% and 42.5% respectively. Majority (48.6%) parents believed that allergic rhinitis was caused by spiritual attack. Only 39.7% knew allergic rhinitis could be heritable disorder.

Most parents knew allergic rhinitis could manifest with bout of sneezing, catarrh and nasal blockage in 63.1%, 55.3% and 40.8% respectively. A total of 32.4% of parents believed that allergic rhinitis was responsible for their children sleep disturbance.

Majority 79.3% of parents believed allergic rhinitis was curable. This may be achieved by 55.3% herbal medication, 59.2% over the counter drugs and 54.7% pharmacy drugs.

Conclusion: Parental Knowledge, Attitude and Practice on allergic rhinitis were poor. This is due to wide gap between expected and actual practice of the parents toward children allergic rhinitis. Better practices among parents of children with allergic rhinitis can be achieved by improving their knowledge and attitudes.