A study to assess knowledge on Hand-foot-and-mouth disease (HFMD) among mothers of under 5 children in selected urban area of Pune City

Abstract

HFMD is a medical abbreviation of Hand, foot and mouth disease reported as indigenous & consider as a communicable disease in India. Researcher Believes ‘A mother defending her child is the ultimate warrior’, A mother balances a variety of responsibilities in order to provide her children with the finest care possible. Hence the goal of this study was to assess the knowledge level on HFMD among mothers (under five children) & to discover the association between study findings and selected demographic variables.

Background: Children are an important pillar all over the world. In India There were more than a million of under-five children’s cases been reported of having HMFD. This disease is common child health viral infection of under-five age. Those infectious agents are enteroviruses, mainly Coxsackievirus 16 (CVA16), Coxsackievirus A6, and Enterovirus 71 (EV-71), also considered a cause of HMFD and a viral infection. The main goal of present study was to assess the awareness and knowledge as well among mother’s about HFMD & its association with demographic variables.

Methodology: quantitative research design, non-experimental A descriptive comparative research approach was used. 30 sample size were used to assess the knowledge among mothers (of under-five children) were chosen with non-probability convenient sampling technique. The Data were gathered through knowledge questionnaires on hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD).

Result: The Fisher test was used to find-out the association between study findings and demographic variables. p-value corresponding to the demographic variable "occupation" is less than 0.05, and occupation was found to have a significant association with knowledge of hand-foot-mouth disease among mothers. The majority of the mothers (children under five) had an average knowledge level on HFMD.

Conclusion: The studies conclude that Majority of the mothers of under 5 children’s have average level of knowledge. And although the association between knowledge level and the demographic variable occupation is small (less than 0.05), occupation was found to have a significant association with knowledge of hand-foot-mouth disease.