Parenteral knowledge and supervision of safe internet practices in children

Abstract

Introduction: The ability to use the internet safely isabout making safe choices.Parental guidance to children in this regard is imperative. The purpose of this study was to estimate parental knowledge and supervision of safe internet practices in children. Materials and Methods: This is anobservational and cross-sectional study. Study participants were parents of school age children working in a higher educational institution. Sample size was 304, selected randomly. Pre-designed, pre-validated questionnaire with questions related to sociodemographic data, parental knowledge and supervision of child’s internet use/online activities and health effects on children was applied. Data was analyzed by SPSS software version 25.0. Median score was used to analyze the parents’ supervision. Chi-square test was used to know the association with socio-demographic variables. Results: Majority of study subjects were educated above graduation. Mean age of study subjects was 38.2±5.15 yrs. They were aware of the average time their children spent on the internet (81.3%) and were actively involved in the limiting the amount of time spent (71.1%). Smart phone (86.8%) was the most common gadget used. Better parental supervision had significant associationwithincome and education of study subjects.