Assessment the Relationship between Parents' Literacy Level with Children Growth in Mashhad: An Analytic Descriptive Study

Abstract

<em>Introduction:</em> <br/>Present children are the investments of community in the future. Preparing children health which leads to the stability of community health, provided to accurate implementation of educational and health programs in the community and especially in mothers. So it is necessary to determine the relationship between parents' literacy with growth rate in children. <br/> <br/><em>Materials and Methods: </em><br/>This cross-sectional descriptive-analytic study was conducted on 300 mothers referring to 10 selected Mashhad health-care centers for monitoring their 6-24-month year old infants. They completed questionnaire. Participants were selected by cluster and simple random sampling. Data were analyzed by descriptive- analytic statistics and using SPSS 16. <br/> <br/><em>Results: </em><br/>Presentfindings showed a significant relationship between literacy level of parents with child growth status, breast feeding rate, junk food consumption, referring to health care center for growth monitoring, the age of initiating supplementary nutrition, the use of oil and butter in baby food and rate of attending in educational classes. So that higher literacy level of parents was associated with using more formula, less junk food, oil and butter in baby's food and more referring times to health care center for monitoring child growth, desirable growth, and also initiating supplementary food more at the assigned time (P<0.05). <br/> <br/><em>Conclusion:</em> <br/>Parents' literacy level influence on children growth status. However, with increasing parents' literacy level, using formula for infants has been increased, but breast milk feeding is also high in this group. <br/> <br/>Keywords:Children, Growth, Literacy, Mashhad, Parents.