Knowledge level of families regarding damage of exposure to ultraviolet rays in childhood and its effect on the development of skin malignancies

This study was descriptively designed to detect knowledge level of parents on thedamage of exposure to ultraviolet rays in childhood, its effect on the development ofskin malignancies and to examine affecting factors.The study was carried out between January 15 ? June 5, 2007 in Dr BehçetUz Education and Research Hospital of Childrens? Diseases and Pediatric Surgery.The domain of the study consisted of all the parents applying to the hospitaldepartments of Infants and Nursery (1st and 2nd), Elder Children, Pediatric surgery,Orthopaedics and Emergency Room. The sampling group consisted of 300 volunteerparents who were randomly chosen from the domain of the study.In order to collect data in the study, the researcher developed a questionnaire,which was in line with the literature. The questionnaire responded by the parents hasincluded items to analyze socio-demographic characteristics, knowledge level andpractices of parents, and to determine the indicative characteristics of the childrenconsidered.SPSS (Statistical Package of Science) 13.0 was utilized in the evaluation andanalysis of the data. For the statistical inference frequentist statistics and Chi-squaretests were used with significance level, so called p-value ?p<0,05?.Consequently, parents were found to present lack of adequate knowledge onthe protection methods and their applications against sun exposures. The studydetermined a direct correlation between this inadequacy and the parents? educationlevel. Thus, these findings and 95,0% of parents? opinion about the necessity ofeducation suggest that a rather more parental training on that subject is required.