Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-kv2lp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-05T03:10:00.866Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Maternal knowledge of the child’s heart defect over a 1-year time span, its development and associated factors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2021

Anja Knöchelmann*
Affiliation:
Medical Faculty, Institute of Medical Sociology, Halle/Saale, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany
Siegfried Geyer
Affiliation:
Medical Sociology Unit, Hannover, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany
*
Author for correspondence: Dr. Anja Knöchelmann, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Medical Faculty, Institute of Medical Sociology, Magdeburger Str. 8 06112 Halle (Saale), Germany. Tel: +49 (0) 345 557 1171; Fax: +49 (0) 345 557 1165. E-mail: Anja.Knoechelmann@medizin.uni-halle.de
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background:

Mothers are the link between patients, physicians, and other caregivers. Therefore, they should be well informed about the child’s heart defect and accompanying issues. This study aimed to assess the mothers’ understanding of their child’s heart defect at hospitalisation and one year later and to analyse the individual development and associated factors.

Material and methods:

Mothers of children with CHD (aged ≤2 years) were interviewed at time of hospitalisation and after one year. Development was calculated using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Knowledge was assessed using the Hannover Inventory of Parental Knowledge of Congenital Heart Disease that consists of eight subscales. Associated factors were self-assessed knowledge at hospitalisation, educational level, cardiac diagnosis, self-assessed severity of CHD, and source of information at follow-up.

Results:

Mothers showed mixed understanding at hospitalisation, but their knowledge improved over a 1-year time span. This was especially true for the subscales “management of CHD” and “surveillance of deterioration”, which resulted in an overall good knowledge at follow-up, whereas knowledge on infective endocarditis was still poor. Mothers with lowest and highest education had the most notable improvements. The same holds for caregivers with children with more severe CHD and who rated their knowledge as less than good.

Conclusion:

Overall, mothers showed significant improvement especially for topics that are important to provide adequate care, but still revealed knowledge gaps one year after hospitalisation. Consequently, clinicians should evaluate the individual knowledge level at all times and inform mothers accordingly.

Information

Type
Original Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press
Figure 0

Table 1. Characteristics of the study population (N = 120).

Figure 1

Figure 1. Level of maternal knowledge at hospitalisation after child’s first main surgery or interventional catheterisation, knowledge assessed using the HIPK-CHD.

Figure 2

Figure 2. (a) Development of maternal knowledge from hospitalisation to follow-up after one year, results from the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, knowledge assessed using the HPIK-CHD. *** = significant = ≤0.001; ** = ≤0.001; * = significant = ≤0.05. (b) Level of maternal knowledge one year after patients discharge, knowledge assessed using HIPK-CHD.

Figure 3

Figure 3. Association between development of maternal knowledge and maternal educational level, Wilcoxon signed-rank test, knowledge assessed with HIPK-CHD. *** = significant = ≤0.001; ** = ≤0.01; * = ≤0.05.

Figure 4

Table 2. Correlations between different measures of cardiac diagnosis (Spearman correlation).

Figure 5

Figure 4. (a) Association between development of maternal knowledge and cardiac diagnosis (categorisation according to Perloff), Wilcoxon signed-rank test, knowledge assessed with HIPK-CHD. *** = significant = ≤0.001; ** = ≤0.01; * = ≤0.05. (b) Association between development of maternal knowledge and estimated severity by mothers, Wilcoxon signed-rank test, knowledge assessed with HIPK-CHD. *** = significant = ≤0.001; ** = ≤0.01; * = ≤0.05.

Figure 6

Figure 5. Association between development of maternal knowledge and source of information, Wilcoxon signed-rank test, knowledge assessed with HIPK-CHD. *** = significant = ≤0.001; ** = ≤0.01; * = ≤0.05.

Figure 7

Figure 6. Association between development of maternal knowledge and self-assessed knowledge level at first interview, Wilcoxon signed-rank test, knowledge assessed with HIPK-CHD. *** = significant = ≤0.001; ** = ≤0.01; * = ≤0.05.

Supplementary material: File

Knöchelmann and Geyer supplementary material

Knöchelmann and Geyer supplementary material

Download Knöchelmann and Geyer supplementary material(File)
File 134.5 KB