Parents’ knowledge, Attitude, and Practices related to Islamabad, Pakistan (2022) Stimulation & Play for early child development in Rawalpindi

Abstract

Background: Parenting plays a key role in development of children. The way parents treat children in their early years matter a lot in their later years. If parents engage with their children in such a way that they often play and stimulate with them, there are better chances that such a child will develop better cognitive and motor functions. Given this importance, it is imperative to understand current levels of knowledge, attitude and practices among parents about early childhood development and especially stimulation & play. Objective: The objectives of this study was to assess knowledge, attitude & Practices regarding stimulation & play among parents of children aged 0-5 years and also to determine the association between socio-demographic factors and level of “KAPs” Methodology: A quantitative survey with mothers and fathers of children less than the age of five, sample size n=401, was done following computer assisted personal interviewing methodology at street intercept in Rawalpindi Pakistan. Data analysis was done using SPSS, significance tests were applied to check association of demographic variables with outcome variables. Results: 52.1% of the respondents had Poor knowledge whereas 47.9% had good knowledge, attitude on the other hand is opposite i.e., 48.1% with Poor attitude and 51.9% with good attitude, whereas the maximum variation was seen in the practices with 58.1% having Poor practices and 41.9% showing good practices. The overall knowledge regarding stimulation & play was found moderate. Similarly, parents had a moderate level of attitude towards the issue. On the other hand, However, practices regarding stimulation and play were significantly Poor. iv v

Conclusion: it is suggested that there are some gaps between knowledge, attitude, and practices, especially practices need special attention. In addition to that, while knowledge and attitude were primarily better in people with high exposure to the outside world (education, working outside), practices were significantly better in case of those who had the privilege of time available to them. Keywords: Stimulation and Play, Parenting, Early Childhood development