Awareness of Family Medicine Providers and Consumers’ Perception Concerning Vitamin A Deficiency

Vitamin A deficiency [VAD] is a major public health problem, especially in Africa and South-East Asia. The most vulnerable groups are pre-school children and pregnant women in low-income countries. In Egypt, prevalence studies on VAD are limited. World Health Organization [WHO] considers VAD in Egypt to be a moderate subclinical deficiency, but one that needs assessment. WHO had recommended that prevention of blindness should be an integral part of Primary Health Care. It is essential for doctors, nurses, and paramedical personnel to be trained in the recognition and treatment of children with xerophthalmia and other children at high risk of VAD. The aim of the present study was to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices [KAP] of family medicine [FM] providers and consumers’ perception concerning VAD in 9 randomly selected FM units and centers in Alexandria, Egypt. The total number of FM providers was 137 [57 family physicians and 80 nurses] and the consumers were 300. Data were collected using 2 different questionnaires: a self-administered questionnaire to assess the level of KAP of the FM providers concerning VAD and an interview questionnaire to measure the consumers perception towards VAD. About 59% of FM providers were working in FM units and 58.4% of them were nurses. Females represented 82.5% of the study sample and the majority [81.8%] had no postgraduate degrees, also 47.4% had no training courses at all. The majority of FM providers had poor knowledge [88.3%], positive attitude [46.7%], and poor practice [86.9%] concerning VAD. There was no statistical significant association between any of the FM providers’ general characteristics and their total KAP scores except for training about VAD. It was found that there was a high statistical significant association between the total knowledge and practice score and training about VAD. The majority of FM providers [83.2%] who had poor knowledge had poor practice and 4.4% who had fair knowledge had partial practice. About 62.7% of the studied consumers were selected from FM units and females represented 80% of the study sample. It was found that 31.7% and 28.7% of the consumers received primary and preparatory education, respectively. Regarding their total knowledge score, 79.3% of the consumers had poor knowledge, 17.3% had fair knowledge, and only 3.3% of them had good knowledge regarding VAD.