BACKGROUND: Respiratory ailments, encompassing a spectrum of disorders, are a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in children, with pneumonia being particularly significant, accounting for 16% of child mortality. To ensure timely engagement with healthcare services, it is imperative to instill awareness through Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) initiatives targeting mothers of children under five. The primary objective of this pilot study is to assess the feasibility of a community-based intervention on health-seeking behaviour, knowledge, and practice measures concerning the management and prevention of pneumonia in children.
METHODS: The pilot study mirrored the main study\'s procedures in two villages, Bhuvanahalli and Gavanahalli, each randomly assigned as either an experimental or a control group. We selected 12 mothers with children under the age of five who had community-acquired pneumonia, employing a straightforward random technique, with six mothers from each group. These mothers were interviewed using a structured questionnaire focusing on health-seeking behaviour, knowledge, and practices related to the management and prevention of pneumonia. Mothers in the experimental group received a community-based intervention, specifically an educational set focusing on health-seeking behaviour, knowledge, and practice measures concerning the management and prevention of pneumonia in children, while those in the control group continued with their routine practices. We collected post-test data from the mothers in both groups at the 2nd, 4th, and 6th months of the intervention. The data analysis was conducted using the IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 28 (Released 2021; IBM Corp., Armonk, New York) software. The Mann-Whitney test and Kruskal-Wallis analyses indicated a notable and statistically significant shift in health-seeking behaviour, knowledge, and practices pertaining to the management and prevention of pneumonia in children as a result of the community-based educational intervention implemented in the experimental group (P<0.05).
CONCLUSIONS: Community-based intervention is crucial to preventing mortality and morbidity in children. The findings of the pilot study affirm its feasibility and lay a strong foundation for further investigation and implementation.

Shaken baby syndrome (SBS) is a form of traumatic brain injury. Shaking babies can cause the brain matter to bounce within the cranium causing bruising and bleeding, which can result in permanent brain injury. Understanding the attitudes and knowledge of mothers on SBS would help establish effective interventions to raise awareness and establish preventive measures and education programs to avoid debilitating sequelae from SBS in newborns and infants. This study aimed to explore the awareness and attitude regarding SBS. An observational, cross-sectional study was conducted from April 1st through July 31st, 2023. The study population is comprised of mothers who are residents of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia and excluded females with no children and those who refused to participate, in addition to mothers not in the Eastern Province. The final sample size included 403 participants. An online-based validated questionnaire was used in the Arabic language. The questionnaire included demographic information and questions to assess the knowledge and attitude of participants regarding SBS. The chi-square test was used to test for significant associations. The majority of the participants were married (72%), while 15.6% were divorced and 10.2% were widowed. Only 7.4% of the participants were illiterates, 30.5% had primary education only, and 15.9% had postgraduate studies. Of note, 37% of the participants said that they would shake their children to calm them if they started to cry. Only 33% of the participants said that shaking babies is harmful. The most commonly reported complications of shaking babies were intracranial bleeding (48.1%), behavioral changes (23.8%), and learning disability (23.5%). Regarding attitude toward SBS, more than two-thirds (72.5%) of the participants said that they want to know more about SBS. Only the educational level had statistically significant relationship between the awareness and the sociodemographic level of the participants. This study concludes that Saudi mothers\' knowledge about SBS is inadequate despite the favorable attitude toward gaining information about it. The awareness level is significantly associated with educational status, which reflects the importance of education programs, especially during the pregnancy period, in raising awareness about SBS and its complications.

Introduction Speech is one of the most important milestones to be achieved by a growing child. The significance of being informed about different pediatric speech abnormalities, especially to mothers, allows them to help their children in cases of irregularities in the maturation in this domain. Aim and objectives The study aimed to assess and educate mothers on the important milestones of speech delay in children and make them address the issue and be aware of various corrective measures to treat the underlying conditions of speech disorders in children. The objectives of the study include understanding the pre-acquired knowledge of the mothers regarding the delay in speech in children, imparting knowledge regarding different speech disorders and their management, spreading awareness on how to seek help for various underlying causes of speech irregularities or delay, and to train the mothers into approaching the challenges in an orderly manner. Methods A study was conducted to guide rural mothers visiting the Obstetrics and Gynecology and Pediatric out-patient departments and Neonatal wards in a rural tertiary care hospital situated in the Sawangi Meghe village of Wardha City, Maharashtra, India, about the detection and treatment of children with disabilities of speech as early as possible. The mothers\' knowledge was assessed before and after the study with the help of questionnaires, and basic understandable information on different types, causes, symptomatology, and management of speech delay and disorders among children was explained with the help of group discussions and posters. Results The motive behind this study was to be aware of facts known by the rural mothers, their actions on coming across such presentations by their children, cues that they would pick up, and the need to ask for help at the appropriate time were assessed and elaborated if not known by them. The Relative Learning Gain and Normalized Gain were calculated to be 76.43% and 0.74 (high gain), respectively, and out of the total subjects, 97.16% of mothers voted that this study proved helpful, and six mothers (4.23%) benefited with the intervention and were referred to experts for evaluation of their children. Conclusion Awareness in this field is necessary to manage children\'s development, especially by their mothers. Knowing the prevalence of knowledge in mothers may build an association with the prevalence of the recognized cases of speech disorders in children. Evaluation at different community levels may be conducted to gauge the need to impart required knowledge about speech disabilities in children to the maternal population. Future research and the impartation of knowledge to caregivers are vital to promote vigilant and systematic action to be taken regarding the proper growth of their children.

OBJECTIVE: In Japan, mumps immunization is not mandatory, and the prevalence of mumps immunization among eligible children is only about 30%, raising concerns about increased risk of meningitis, encephalitis and deafness caused by mumps. In 2011, to understand why families are not voluntarily immunizing their children against mumps, we surveyed mothers who were university graduates to examine the factors and barriers influencing mumps vaccination in Japan.
METHODS: A cross sectional design.
METHODS: We sent questionnaires including questions on demographic data and vaccination status, barriers and factors for immunizations to university alumnae to recruit participants. Data were analysed by Student\'s t-test for continuous variables and by univariate and multivariate analysis to obtain the odds ratio and adjusted odds ratio.
RESULTS: Two hundred and twenty-six mothers with children responded with an average (range) age of 44.7 years (SD = 5.02; 30-55 years). Adjusted odds ratios (aOR) from logistic regression analysis identified fear of harmful side-effects (aOR, 2.55; 95% CI, 1.10 to 5.89), the vaccination not being mandatory (aOR, 3.30; 95% CI, 1.41 to 7.72), perceived non-efficacy (aOR, 6.21; 95% CI, 1.85 to 20.91) and being busy (aOR, 3.30; 95% CI, 1.21 to 9.01) were significantly and inversely associated with mumps vaccination. Recommendations from family doctors (aOR, 0.35; 95% CI, 0.17 to 0.71), living abroad when their children would be vaccinated (aOR, 0.10; 95% CI, 0.02 to 0.68) and the maternal age (aOR, 0.91; 95% CI, 0.85 to 0.96) were significant and positively associated with vaccination.
CONCLUSIONS: In the absence of mandatory vaccinations, a public education campaign about mumps, their potential consequences and the nature and value of vaccination could improve the prevalence of mumps vaccination among children and prevent the consequences of this disease.