Assessment of Awareness, and Barriers to Club Foot Care Among Primary Care Givers of Affected Children in a Tertiary Centre.

BACKGROUND

Clubfoot is a childhood disability occurring in 1 out of every 1000 live births. About 80% of these are found in low and middle income countries. Although this condition is treatable using serial manipulation and casting, problems of access and compliance to treatment may result in treatment default and drop-out.

AIM: This study serves as a pilot to evaluate the awareness of care givers about clubfoot, and identified the barriers they face during their ward's treatment.

Methods

Caregivers of patients attending the clubfoot clinic of a tertiary centre, were consecutively recruited over a 3 month period. An interviewer administered semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect data on their demographics, prior knowledge about clubfoot, and barriers to effective compliance with treatment protocol. All data was analyzed using SPSS version 23. Chi-square test was used to determine the relationship between socio-demographic variables and prior knowledge about club foot. P-value was considered significant < 0.05 at 95% confidence interval.

RESULTS

A total of 67 care givers participated in the study. There were 58 females (86.6%) with male to female ratio of 1:6.4. Thirty-two respondents (47.8%) had a prior knowledge of club foot deformity. Fourty six (69%) had their lives/work affected by frequent clinic visits, while 43 (64.2%) travelled beyond 10km to access care. Frequent change of cast was a concern to 54 (80.6%), while travel costs was a limitation for 43 (64.2%). There was no significant relationship between socio-demographic variables and Knowledge of club foot among the primary care givers.

CONCLUSION

The study identified at gap in awareness of club foot deformity among primary care givers of children with club foot. Distance travelled by care givers as well as cost of transport were important barriers to effective access to care for club foot deformity.