The Knowledge and Practice of Mothers Caring for their Children with Acute Respiratory Infection among those attending the Under-Five Unit at Bedele Hospital, Southwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Acute respiratory infections continue to be the leading cause of acute illnesses worldwide and remain an important health concern. Objectives: To assess the level of knowledge and practice of mothers caring for children with an acute respiratory infection. Methods: Facility-based cross-sectional study was conducted at the hospital employing all consecutive mothers who brought their children to the under-five outpatient department (n=195). The data was analyzed by SPSS, and the finding was presented by figures and tables. Results: Among the included mothers more than half, 54.87% of them were within age group of 25-34 years. The study indicated that 70% of respondents had good knowledge, the rest 30% had poor knowledge on the other hand, and 57.15% of the respondents had a good practice on ARTI. Conclusion: Although the majority of the mothers had good knowledge, still a significant proportion of the mothers had poor practice about acute respiratory tract infection. Therefore, to further increase the knowledge and improve the practice of mothers about ARTI additional effort is needed. Furthermore, identifying the determinant factors by interested researcher is also valuable.