Study of the knowledge, attitudes and practices of parents of children with bronchial asthma in a tertiary care hospital in Ahmedabad

Background: Asthma is common chronic diseases among children. The impact of asthma in children depends on complex interactions between disease severity, reaction of children towards disease, treatment efficiency, social roles, and social environment. This study aims to assess the level of knowledge, the common misconceptions and the common attitudes and practices prevalent among parents of asthmatic children, which can help paediatricians in educating parents and the public about the disease.Methods: It was hospital based cross sectional study. Parents with bronchial asthmatic children between 3 and 12 years of age were interviewed based on predefined criteria. A proforma was used to collect data of parents and disease history of children. The 45-item questionnaire with three domains: knowledge, attitude, practice of bronchial asthma was scored. Higher scores indicated better KAP.Results: Out of 90 respondents, 64.4% had poor knowledge and 35.6% had good knowledge. About 44.4% respondents had negative attitude and 81.1% had poor practice.There was a poor attitude on the usage of asthma controller medication and the time of stoppage of the medicines. Overall, the attitude was on an average scale in more than 50.0% of the respondents.Conclusions: Around 2/3rd parents had poor knowledge and negative attitude and ? had poor practice. There was a significant association for the severity and duration of the disease with the knowledge and practice There was a significant conversion of good knowledge to practice.