Parental education regarding acute respiratory infections (ARI) : an action programme done among parents of 0-1-year-old infants in Barangay 484 Dimasalang Manila from July to September 1992 / Anna Acidera, Jennifer Alonzo, Edmund Ang, Anthony Jayvee Chan, McDowell Chua, Rina Daag, Orlando Deduyo, Shella Marie Dela Cruz, Vicente Dennis Dio, Ma. Lourdes Donato, Enrico Evangelista, Vincent Paul Guzman, Jo-Ann Khow, Armando Lim, Romar Lingad, Elaine Clairemon Lingan, Marichu Liwag, Karyn Luna, Lilian Marquez, Jocelyn Ng, Arrel Olaño, Frederick Parallag, Erlinda Roque, Baby Corinne Santos and Vincent Davis Tayag.

Includes appendices and bibliographical references.

Abstract: As pointed out by previous studies, Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) remain to be a major health problem in the Philippines (Saniel, 1989). Moreover, it is a known fact that ARI is mostly detrimental among infants below 5 years old (Merson, 1989); aggravated by low birth weight, Malnutrition, lack of immunization, crowded household, poor environmental sanitation, improper feeding and exposure to cigarette smoke. The fight against ARI seems a herculean task, what with the deleterious effects of poverty countering every effort to uplift the health status of the Filipino. In line with the facts aforementioned, an action programme to reduce morbidity and mortality from ARI was conducted, which centered on primary health care (PHC), i.e., prevention of ARI through a health education program at the family level, which aimed to educate the parents of infants (0-1 year old) on the early identification and prevention of ARI. An organized community was chosen for the implementation of our action programme. Parents of 0-1 year old infants in Barangay 484, Dimasalang were given a pretest to determine their baseline knowledge on ARI. A series of lecture which focused on health education, and which included topics on breastfeeding, nutrition, immunization, environmental sanitation. Workshops on breastfeeding proper hygiene, and the proper way of getting the vital signs were also conducted, in addition to the distribution of pamphlets and posters containing material about ARI. In order to evaluate the parents` level of knowledge after the lectures and workshops, they were given a post test which contained the same questions as were asked in the pretest. We found that 67% of our subjects gained a significant increase in knowledge by more than or equal to 17% with a level of confidence of 0.05. The mean difference between the pre and post test results was found to be at 21.28% (S.D. = 9.4).

Thesis - Department of Community & Family Medicine