Children's feet are complex structures and strategies for supporting good foot health throughout childhood are important, but can be challenging. Greater awareness of the contemporary factors influencing decisions, such as footwear purchases, is needed to inform health narratives which are more closely aligned to parents' attitude and behaviours. The aim of this study was to explore parent's knowledge of children's foot health, understand the common foot health concerns and experiences with footcare services. A purposeful sampling approach was used to recruit parents of children aged 5 years and under. Participants completed a selfadministered, online survey which consisted of 39 questions across six sections: (1) Participant demographics;(2) Developmental events (milestones such as crawling and walking); (3) Foot health concerns; (4) Developmental aids (products such as baby bouncers and baby walkers); (5) Footwear; and (6) Foot health information. Both adaptive and mandatory questions were used. Descriptive statistics were used to summarise closed-ended questions and a summative content analysis was adopted to draw inferences from the text data. Two-hundred and thirty-nine parents completed the survey, and this represented female participants (n=213) aged between 34-42 (n=126) or 25-34 (n=83) years of age. The survey generated responses from a wide geographical spread across the UK but the majority of these were from the North West of England (n=75) and South East of England (n=46). Four main themes were drawn from the content analysis:(1) foot health concerns and seeking advice; (2) information and advice; (3) how parents support infant milestone events; and (4) footwear. Conclusion: This work provides insight into parents' perspective on the broad topics of children's foot health, identifying common experiences and concerns about their children's foot health and the factors which influence decision making. Understanding more about these issues will help health professionals support parents during infancy and early years.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2025 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.