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Overview of parental knowledge on newborn’s health in general practice

Munya KOENIG

In XXX, there is more difficulties to have access quickly to primary care, moreover we observed that parents present a lack of knowledges, while newborn’s medical care depends of parental vigilance. Improving parental knowledge on newborn’s health by general practitioners could lead to a reduction of tension in primary care. Do multiparous have better knowledge as primiparous ?Compare medical knowledge of primiparous versus multiparous parents with respect to the main pathologies in newborns aged 0-12 months. Secondly, develop a brochure with basic information on newborns health.We obtained CNIL authorization. We included parents with at least one child under twelve months, french speaking-reading-friendly. It was a single-center retrospective observational quantitative study. A questionnaire addressing the first year period was distributed in maternity and pediatrics emergency. Statistics data were compared with a Chi2-Test, Student-test, Fischer-Test, Wilcoxon-test. Moreover, an univarious and a multivarious analysis were made.134 responses were obtained: 63 composed the group primiparous and 71 the group multiparous. 100% of the respondents had under the middle mark, we found a significant difference regarding the number of false responses between multiparous and primiparous (29,6% vs 57,1% p=0,001). Infact, only 53% (p= 0,241) correctly defined fever, 30% didn’t define correctly diarrhea (p= 0,229). Infront of fever, we also observed a tendency towards self-medication in the multiparous group. Our results confirmed our initial hypothesis, that multiparous skills gained through medical advice, provides them better knowledges as primiparous.Our sample was comparable to national statistics: the average age was 29,7 years (5.3) p<0,001; 82,9% were women p= 0.783; 53% were multiparous p<0,001; 51,2% were high-level study background p= 0.069. The study was limited by multiple bias linked to our selection mode (paper questionnaire) as selection, input, information, temporal biases. However our results were relevant, in agreement with literature’s data.We ascertained a global lack of parental knowledge regarding basic definitions, simple cares, emergency signs. Parents expressed their need to be informed. It seems important to develop standards preventing actions to help parents with newborn's health: as brochures, dedicated consultations, online articles/videos. It may improve parental empowerment in primary care.