Assessment of Mothers’ Care for their Children with Thalassemia

Background: Thalassemia is an inherited blood disorder among children cause mild or severe anemia, which could damage organs and lead to death. The study aimed to assess mothers’ care of their children with thalassemia. Research design: Descriptive analytical design. Setting: The study was conducted at Pediatric Specialist Clinics (hematology clinic) at Pediatric hospital affiliated to Ain Shams University hospitals in Egypt. Sample: A purposive sample was used for the study subjects; composed of 75 mothers of children with thalassemia disease. Tools: Three tools were used to conduct this study. First tool was an interviewing questionnaire for assessing the socio-demographic characteristics, of the studied children and their mothers, past and current medical history, current health needs and problems. Also mother’s knowledge and practices level about the care of their children with thalassemia. Second tool: Child’s medical record, and Third tool: Child’s physical assessment to assess physical health status of the children. Results: Study finding indicated that, 55% from the studied children with thalassemia were female, 23% of them had many complications from the medications used. 81.3% of mothers had unsatisfactory knowledge about thalassemia and its care, and 61.3% of them, their total practices about the care provided for their children with thalassemia were inadequate. Also, there were 94.7% of studied children always adhere to the treatment plan and 98.7% of them always conduct follow up regularly to the especial clinic. Conclusion: The result of study concluded that, there was insignificant negative correlation between the complications of thalassemia among studied children and their total mothers’ knowledge about thalassemia management and their total reported mothers’ practices about health care of thalassemia for all items. Recommendations: Periodic counseling program to all mothers had children suffer from thalassemia who attended to outpatient clinics about diseases treatment, prevention and control measures.