The importance of preventive child care from the point of view of mothers

Objective: To assess protective behaviour of mothers who have children between the age of 0–16 years concerning immunization, nutrition and periodic health care. Methods: A cross-sectional and descriptive study held at Sakarya, Turkey, which inclusion criteria were: having child/ children between the age of 0-16 years, sharing the same domicile with them, giving informed consent to participate in the study. The study group (n=368) was randomly selected among mothers fulfilling the above criteria. Data were collected between the years of 2003–2004. For sociodemographic inquiry, a semistructured questionnaire consisting of 19 questions was used. After test-retest procedures, these 10 items Likert scale questions (1=low importance, 10=utmost importance) were used to assess mothers’ attitudes towards their offsprings’ immunization, nutrition, and periodic health care. Results: The score for immunization (9.4±1.2) was leading; nutrition (8.5±1.4) and periodic health care (8.2±1.6) were found relatively less important by the mothers. The attributed importance to nutrition and periodic health care was significantly increasing with higher education levels (r=0.34, p