Knowledge, Attitudes, and Perceptions of Quebec Nurses Relating to Climate Change in the Context of Their Practice with Children Aged 0 to 5 Years: A Cross-Sectional Descriptive Study

Abstract

Study background Reducing children's vulnerability to climate change (CC) depends firstly on parents having the ability to adapt. Purpose The purpose of this study was to describe knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions of nurses in support of parents’ ability to adapt to CC to protect the physical and psychosocial health of 0–5 year olds. Methods A cross-sectional descriptive study was used. A total of 127 pediatric nurses from the province of Quebec completed an online questionnaire documenting nurses’ knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions about CC. Results A third of nurses have little or no knowledge of the health risks of CC for children, even though they consider it to be a major issue for children. Nurses perceive that parents don’t generally consider their children to be among the most vulnerable to CC, trivialize their effects on their children's health, have little knowledge of the effects of CC mainly on their children's psychosocial health, know little about the means to use to protect them, and more readily seek help from family and friends to ensure their children's protection. Nurses affirm that they are responsible for discussing the health effects of CC with parents, introduce measures to reduce their effects, possess little knowledge and few skills for reducing their effects, and feel unprepared to deal with their effects in their practice. Conclusions Greater access to training on CC-related concepts is needed to increase nurses’ knowledge. Nurses’ perceptions must be validated with parents to promote optimal protection of children from CC.