Mothers’ Practices regarding Health Problems and Health Needs of Their Deaf and Hearing-Impaired Children

Background: Children who have hearing impaired need exceptional attention from their families, especially from mothers, as they are the most person contact with their children from birth and throughout life. Aim of the study: To assess mothers’ practices regarding health Problems and health needs of their deaf and hearing-impaired children. Setting: the study was conducted at Cairo governorate at Al Amal for deaf and hearing-impaired schools affiliated to Ministry of Education in Al Mataryia and Abbassia. Sample: simple random sample used for selecting the setting for data collection and a convenience sample used for selecting the subjects. The sample size was 230 mothers. Tools: One tool was used; an Interviewing Questionnaire to assess part (1) Socio demographic data for mother and child; Part (2) Child's medical history; part (3) The knowledge of mothers regarding health problems and health needs and Part (4) Reported practices of mothers regarding health problems and health needs. Results: 62.6% of the studied mothers had unsatisfactory knowledge regarding total health problems and health needs and 79.6% of the studied mothers did unsatisfactory reported practices of their deaf and hearing-impaired children. Conclusion: There was a positive relation between total score of knowledge and total score of reported practices and there were no statistically correlation between the two variables. Recommendations: Health education directed to mothers of children of hearing-impairment or hearing loss to improve their knowledge and practices regarding health problems and health needs.