Abstract:
Background: Vitamin D Deficiency in children is a worldwide
health problem. Yet, there is little known about awareness of parents
regarding this issue in Jordan. The recent study aimed to assess the
mothers’ knowledge and practices toward vitamin D deficiency in infants
and up to age of 6 years.
Methods: an online questionnaire was distributed as Google Form
on mothers of children between 0-6 yeas, assessing their knowledge about
vitamin D, its deficiency, and their practices toward vitamin D
deficiency for their children, Descriptive statistics and Chi-Square
test were performed.
Results: Most of mothers (64.8%) were aged between 30-40
years, and had education level of Bachelor’s degree (63.3%). Sunlight
was considered the main source of vitamin D (89.1%), while fish and
eggs were the main dietary sources (63.5%, 65.5%, respectively).
Vitamin D was considered important for bone and teeth health (93.9%).
The majority of participants reported lack of sun exposure and decreased
vitamin D rich foods as risk factors and rickets as complication of
vitamin D deficiency (98.5%, 96.4%, 89.3%, respectively).
Most of mothers (65.1%) indicated the time before 10 AM as the best
time of day to expose baby/child to the sun. The majority of
participants (82.2%) believe that vitamin D deficiency is a common
health problem in children in our country, and 86.4% think they need
more information on vitamin D deficiency in children. Age, nationality,
nature of housing, and age group of children had an impact on
knowledge’s level of participants.
Conclusion: Most of participants were aware of vitamin D
sources, benefits, risk factors and complications of deficiency,
although there was inadequate knowledge among respondents was found in
certain domains of vitamin D. More education is required for mothers
about vitamin D and its deficiency.
Keywords : Vitamin D; awareness; deficiency; knowledge.
What is already known about this topic?
- Vitamin D deficiency is a common
global health problem among different age groups.
- Vitamin D deficiency is prevalent in Jordan among children.
- Little is known about awareness of parents in Jordan regarding vitamin
D deficiency in children.
What does this article add?
This study assessed the mother’s
knowledge and practices toward vitamin D deficiency in infants and up
to age of 6 years in Jordan.
The result of this study concluded that the Jordanian mothers had
inadequate level of knowledge in certain domains of vitamin D such as
some dietary sources, risk factors and complications of deficiency in
addition to some practices undertaken by participants