| dc.description.abstract | Background of study
Children under five years belong to a susceptible group who needs special attention and care
during health and illness, which imposes equal responsibility to the mothers and medical
personnel (UNICEF, 2008).
A febrile convulsion is the sudden increase of body temperature resulting in loss of
consciousness, stiffing of the body, jerky movements of the extremities and twitching of the face
(Pina-Garza et al, 2013).
Objective: To assess knowledge, attitude and practices of care takers towards prevention of
febrile convulsions in children under five years at Mityana Regional Referral Hospital
Methods: The research was a descriptive cross-sectional study because the sample of the
population was assessed at a single point in time and there was no need for follow-up of the
respondents at the end the study. The sample size was 207 respondents.
Results: a majority (47.8%) of the respondents were between 21-29 years of age, 18.8% were
aged 30 – 39 years and 6.8% of the respondents were aged 50 years above.
73.9% of the respondents knew what febrile convulsions are while 85.5% of the respondents
confirmed that they are aware that febrile convulsion can be prevented among children of under-
five.
Results show that 94.7% of the respondents said that febrile convulsions are not good therefore
they should be prevented while 91.8% of the respondents rated modern medicines to be very
useful in the prevention of febrile convulsions which implied positive attitude.
On practices of the respondents, 23.2% of the respondents believed that rushing the child to the
hospital is the best were of preventing febrile convulsions, 18.8% stated that giving temperature
reducing drugs can prevent febrile convulsions, 15.9% tepid sponge with warm water, 15.7%
reported giving herbal medicines, 14.0% of the respondents reported giving fluids to the child
while 9.1% used cold water for tepid sponging the children with fever and 3.2% reported leaving
the child at home.
Conclusion: The knowledge of the respondents was high with majority of the respondents
having adequate knowledge on prevention of febrile convulsions. The care takers had adequate
information on prevention of febrile convulsions.
The respondents had a positive attitude towards prevention of febrile convulsions in children
under five years.
The respondents had poor practices towards prevention of febrile convulsions in children under
five years.
Recommendations
:
Health facilities need to conduct routine and continuous health education talks for the care takers
on prevention febrile convulsions so as to have constant reminders.
There is need for further research studies to investigate the factors influencing the prevention of
febrile convulsion among children aged five years among the care givers. This will generate
information on what motivates care takers to comply with prevention measure. | en_US |
