Knowledge and attitudes towards family use of Maternal Child Health Handbook in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Abstract

Background: The Maternal and Child Health Handbook is a long-term health monitoring tool that records children’s health, immunization, and developmental stages from the prenatal period to age five. By using the MCH handbook together with parents and health workers, it is possible to increase health education for parents and prevent, and detect potential developmental delays in children at an early age. Aim: To detect the knowledge and attitudes toward family use of the MCH handbook Materials and Methods: The study was conducted using an analytical study using cross-sectional design and included a total of 373 parents and caregivers with children aged 1-4 in 4 districts of Ulaanbaatar city. When assessing knowledge, correct answers were scored and grouped. When assessing the attitude, the parents were scored based on whether they were recorded in the MCH handbook. To determine the relationship between influencing factors, a one-way logistic regression analysis was performed, which was considered statistically significant at a 95% confidence interval and p<0.05 and was performed using the SPSS 25 program. Results: The mean age of the study participants was 33.5±6.5. Reading and keeping a handbook completely (p=0.0001) was statistically significantly related to improving knowledge (p=0.0001). In studying the factors affecting handbook records, the following were statistically significant: gestational age (OR=0.956, 95% CI [0.923, 0.990]), number of births (OR=1.206, 95% CI [1.002, 1.452]). Factor influencing knowledge about the notebook is gestational age (OR=0.954, 95% CI [0.918, 0.992]). Conclusion: The factor influencing knowledge about the health notebook of children under five years of age were gestational age (p=0.017). The factors influencing the maintenance of the notebook were gestational age (p=0.011), number of births (p=0.048), and whether the notebook was read completely (p=0.008).