Knowledge attitude and practices of parents with children suffering from sickle cell disease towards factors that precipitate sickle cell crises,at arthur davidson children’s hospital in Ndola Zambia

Abstract

Introduction: Sickle cell disease is an autosomal recessive disease that causes considerable morbidity and mortality. The general objective of the study was to define the knowledge attitude and practice of parents with children that have sickle cell disease towards factors that precipitate sickle cell crises ,while the specific objectives were to determine the knowledge of factors that precipitate sickle cell crises among parents with children suffering from sickle cell disease, to assess the attitude of parents towards reducing the sickle cell crises, to describe the practices that parents do in order to reduce the frequency of hospitalization. Methodology: A cross-sectional quantitative study was conducted on parents with children that had sickle cell disease who went for monthly review at Arthur Davidson Children’s hospital in Ndola Zambia. The self-administered structured questionnaire was used for data collection .Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics on SPSS version 20Results:A total of 216(100%) parents were enrolled into the studyof which 173(80.1%) were female and 43(19.9%)male. Most respondents were aged between 27- 37 and were all from Ndola. About half of the respondents had average knowledge 53.9 %.Conclusion:The study reviewed that respondents had average knowledge about sickle cell and factors that precipitate crises, 91. 2% of the respondents had a positive attitude towards the disease and they practiced good methods that have the potential of reducing the crises.