Study of knowledge, attitude, and practices of child care physicians toward nutritional vitamin D deficiency in pediatric population

Abstract

Objectives: Nutritional Vitamin D deficiency (NVDD), commonly seen in infancy and childhood, is a nutritional epidemic. Practicing child care physicians have different approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of nutritional Vitamin D deficiency in children. This study aims to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of clinical diagnosis, investigations, and treatment of NVDD in infants and children among child care physicians from a teaching institute. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted to assess knowledge, attitude, and practice of NVDD among resident doctors, consultants and faculty members working in a teaching hospital by convenience sampling method. The study was based on a pretested questionnaire which was administered by a single investigator on all the study participants. Twelve questions formulated to assess the knowledge, was scored as 0 (0%) to 14(100%) and ten questions regarding attitude and practices with possible responses as agree, disagree, or neutral was scored as 0 (0%) to 20 (100%). Data were analysed with statistical software, STATA, version 10.1,2011. Descriptive statistics included summary measures such as frequency and percentages to summarize qualitative variables and categorical responses. Inferential statistics included P-values generated from hypothesis testing procedures. Results: There were 96 participants including 46 residents. Forty-seven (49%) of them scored more than 11 out of 14 while 49 (51%) participants scored between 7 to 10 out of 14 on the knowledge part of the questionnaire. Interestingly nobody scored less than 7 out of 14. Sixty (62%) participants scored more than 15 out of 20 and nearly 19 (2%) physicians scored less than 10 out of 20 in the attitude and practice part of the questionnaire. On intergroup comparison between consultant pediatricians and residents on knowledge regarding NVDD showed no significant difference except for knowledge regarding cumulative therapeutic dose of cholecalciferol (p value 0.025). There were more attitude and practice gaps in this group of respondents although it was not statistically significant. Conclusion: This study identifies gaps in the knowledge, attitude and practice of child care physicians about NVDD in infants and children. Knowledge gaps regarding definition and change in treatment protocol of NVDD and inconsistency in clinical identification, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention protocols across all groups of physicians.