Knowledge and management practices of infant teething symptoms among mothers in a tertiary facility in Ghana

Abstract

Introduction: teething is a natural process that all infants go through, and most toddlers obtain their first tooth around six months. However, misconceptions about teething and its remedies are still prevalent. The study assessed the knowledge and management practices of infant teething symptoms among mothers whose children were admitted to the Pediatric ward of Tamale Teaching Hospital.

Methods: the study adopted a prospective descriptive cross-sectional design with a quantitative data collection method. A total of 251 mothers were selected using a convenient sampling strategy, and a structured questionnaire was used for data collection.

Results: the study found that 79.7% and 20.3% of respondents had good and poor knowledge of teething, respectively. Also, 65.3% and 34.7% of the mothers had good and poor practices, respectively, in the management of teething symptoms. Marital status (p= 0.029) and type of ward (p= 0.020) were significantly associated with mothers' knowledge of teething. Furthermore, mothers less than 30 years of age (OR, 2.07; 95% CI:1.19-3.57; p= 0.009) and mothers with formal education (OR, 2.22; 95% CI: 1.22-3.81; p= 0.004) were more likely to have good management practices for teething symptoms.

Conclusion: most mothers have a good understanding of child teething, but they do not think delayed eruptions indicate systemic disease. They identified taking the child to the hospital during teething symptoms and administering Paracetamol to relieve the symptoms as standard practices. However, more education is needed to differentiate between teething signs and other ailments and to prevent substandard first aid practices during teething.