Parents' knowledge and behaviour concerning sunning their babies; a cross-sectional, descriptive study

BACKGROUND: For centuries, sunlight has been used for therapeutic purposes. Parents still sun their infants to treat neonatal jaundice, nappy rash or mostly to supply vitamin D for bone development as a consequence of health beliefs. In this study we aimed to assess knowledge and behaviour of parents about benefits of sunlight and sun protection. METHODS: In this study, parents attending to governmental primary healthcare units for their children's routine vaccinations, upon their informed consent, were consecutively enrolled during one month. Data were collected by a semi-structured questionnaire. RESULTS: The mean age of 118 enrolled parents and their babies were 27.9 ± 6.5 years and 8.3 ± 5.8 months, respectively. Most of the participants were mothers (93.2%), housewives (81.4%) with an educational level of ≥6 years (71.2%). Sunlight was considered beneficial for bone development (86.4%), diaper rash (5.9%) and neonatal jaundice (12.7%). In case of neonatal jaundice 72.0% of the participants reported that they would consult a physician. Most of the participants (82.2%) were sunning their babies outdoors. Nearly half (49.7%) of them got this information from medical staff. Fifty two percent of the parents were sunning their babies before 10–11 a.m. and/or after 3 p.m. Only 13.6% of parents reported using sunscreen for their babies, and the majority of them were using sun protecting factor ≥ 15. One forth of the sunscreen users was using sunscreen according to their physicians' advice. CONCLUSION: Most of the participants were aware of the benefits of sunlight; especially for bone development. However they were displaying inappropriate behaviour while sunning their babies for health reasons. More education should be given to parents about the danger of sunlight at primary health care units while advising to sun their babies, if any

Formalising medical quality indicators to improve guidelines

Abstract. Medical guidelines can significantly improve quality of medical care and reduce costs. But how do we get sound and well-structured guidelines? This paper investigates the use of quality indicators that are formulated by medical institutions to evaluate medical care. The main research questions are (i) whether it is possible to formalise those indicators in a specific knowledge representation language for medical guidelines, and (ii) whether it is possible to verify whether such guidelines do indeed satisfy these indicators. In a case study on two real-life guidelines (Diabetes and Jaundice) we have studied 35 indicators, that were developped independently from these guidelines. Of these 25 (71%!) suggested anomalies in one of the guidelines in our case study.

'Halving the heel pricks': evaluation of a neonatal jaundice protocol incorporating the use of a transcutaneous bilirubinometer

Aim: This study aimed to assess the impact of implementing a new jaundice protocol incorporating the use of the Konica Minolta/Air Shields JM 103 Jaundice Meter (JM103) (Konica Minolta Sensing Inc., Osaka, Japan) in the setting of an Australian post-natal ward. Methods: A before-and-after study was completed following the introduction of a protocol integrating the use of the JM103 monitor on to the post-natal ward. Eligible infants were ≥36 weeks gestation, >24 h and <8 days of age. The number of Total Serum Bilirubin tests (TSBRs) were compared for the 12 months prior (T1) with a 6-month period and 6 months after protocol introduction (T2). Transcutaneous bilirubin (TcBR) results were also collected in T2. Rates of phototherapy and peak TSBRs at commencement were also compared as measures of safety. Results: Four hundred and twenty-six of the 2197 live births in T1 required one or more TSBRs compared with 119 of the 1169 live births in T2. This represents an odds ratio of 0.47 (95% confidence interval 0.38–0.58) for infants in T2 having ≥1 TSBR compared with T1. There was no difference between the groups for rates of phototherapy (3.8% vs. 3.0%; P = 0.2) nor any difference between the groups for peak SBR during phototherapy (301.9 μmol/L (standard deviation, SD 58) for T1 vs. 303.2 μmol/L (SD 54) for T2; P = 0.45). The estimated cost saving per year is $6966.00. Conclusion: TcBR measurement in conjunction with our protocol significantly reduces painful procedures and costs without increasing the risk of delaying treatment with phototherapy