Evaluation of Parental Attitudes toward Lumbar Puncture in their Children

Introduction:   Sometimes physicians need to assess some markers on selected children s cerebrospinal fluid specimen according to lumbar puncture (LP). Although immediate diagnosis and treatment especially for meningitis is necessary, But just at this moment, due to some incorrect believe in society, some parents may not allow physician to do LP. The reality is that most of these people, if they have enough information about this issue, will not interfere. This study aimed to assess parent s knowledge and attitudes toward this subject.   Materials and Method: Through a cross - sectional study we evaluated 91 parents, who their child must been undergone LP as physician’s decision, selected during 18 months using purposive sampling. The data collection tool was a questionnaire including two sections of the child and the parents knowledge and attitudes.  Scientific validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by content validity. To achieve the objectives, SPSS ver.15 and descriptive statistics and chi-square test were used.   Results: 61 parents(67%)  mentioned   fear of some side effects as the main reason of their children s  LP discontent .The most important  cause of  fear was low back pain according to  50 (54.9%) parents s view. 70 parents (76.9%) had some satisfaction after performing  LP .There was  statistically significant difference between proportion of satisfied parents and non-satisfied ones (p<0.001). Average score parental satisfact ion for LP was 7.2 +3.2 87.   Conclusions: It seems that improvement of  parent s information about LP process and it s benefits  by health care group  , may influence on their belief and cooperation during diagnostic tests.  

کلیدواژه ها:

Attitude ، Children ، Lumbar puncture ، Parental