A different aspect of corrosive ingestion in children: socio-demographic characteristics and effect of family functioning.
OBJECTIVE
Corrosive ingestion is thoroughly investigated in terms of its complications and treatment modalities but to date family functioning, behavior, attitude and knowledge of mothers of children who ingested corrosives has not been investigated and socio-demographic data has rarely been mentioned. Therefore a study was planned to investigate the socio-demographic data, family functioning, knowledge, behavior and attitude of mothers of children who ingested corrosive materials.


METHODS
The mothers of 50 children who ingested corrosive materials and 60 controls were asked to answer a questionnaire which included socio-demographic data and questions about their attitude, behavior and knowledge of corrosive ingestion. The mothers were also asked to reply family assessment device (FAD) and parental attitude research instrument (PARI).


RESULTS
The average ages of the children were 5.31+/-2.32 in the corrosive group with an M:F ratio of 1:1. The level of education of both mothers (p=0.000) and fathers (p=0.000) in the corrosive group were lower than that of the controls. There was no difference between the two groups in terms of number of working mothers (p=0.085). In the corrosive group the families used to have three or more children (42%) and the socioeconomic status of this group was lower than the controls (p=0.001). In the corrosive group these substances were purchased unlabeled (64%) and kept mainly in coke bottles. The affective involvement dimension of the FAD and the attitude of over-parenting and democratic attitude dimensions of the PARI tests were significantly different in the corrosive group among mothers from lower educational level whereas no difference was detected among mothers from higher educational level in this regard.


CONCLUSIONS
It was found that both level of education of the parents and socioeconomic factors played important role in shaping the habits that might lead to corrosive ingestion in children. For the prevention of corrosive ingestion broad based strategies including education are required.
Sarioglu-Buke
Akile
A
Pamukkale University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pediatric Surgery, Doktorlar Cad, Denizli, Turkey.
Corduk
Nergul
N
Atesci
Figen
F
Karabul
Murat
M
Koltuksuz
Ugur
U
D000328:Adult; D002057:Burns, Chemical / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002424:Caustics / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D012923:Social Class; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014421:Turkey / Q000453:epidemiology
D002424:Caustics