Study of Awareness, Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Pediatric Healthcare Practitioners towards Wilson Disease.

Background; Wilson disease (WD) is a rare genetic disease that occurs secondary to an excess of copper building up in our body, especially in the liver and brain. Diagnosis of WD is challenging. Since it is a curable illness, raising awareness about it among medical professionals is essential. Aim of the work; to assess the awareness, knowledge, attitude and practice of pediatric practitioners towards WD providing useful alerts about this disease and augmenting their knowledge. Participants and Methods ; Five hundred and one (501) pediatric practitioners with varying academic degrees from several Egyptian governmental hospitals participated in this cross-sectional study using a questionnaire applied either by personal contact or online. Data were analyzed and a score response was calculated with full score of 34 marks. Results; the participants had been classified according to their total score of knowledge into three groups; Group of good knowledge (those who achieved 70% or more of the total score) they represented 14.2 % of the total participants. Group of fair knowledge (those with score of 50% to less than 70% of the total score) they represented 60% of the total participants. Group of poor knowledge (less than 50% of the total score) they represented 25.3% of the total participants. While 98.8% of the participants did not perceive cases of WD in their clinical practice, only 1.2% of participants did. Fortunately, most of the participants showed a positive attitude towards WD, they are looking forward to enhance their knowledge about WD in the future. Conclusion; We concluded that there was a defective knowledge and practice among different levels of health care practitioners, despite their positive attitude towards WD.