Determining the Content of a Pediatric Asthma Website from Parents’ Perspective: The Internet Use and Information Needs

The acquisition of knowledge by parents of children with asthma plays an important role in the treatment of children. Thus, it is important to understand their needs and provide this information through available methods such as a website.The aim of this studywas to determine the content of a pediatric asthma website based on the evaluation of parents information needs. Materials and Methods This cross-sectional studywas conducted by a descriptive-analytical approach in Kerman, Iran. Data were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire.The questionnaire was distributed among a sample of 300 parents visiting allergy and asthma specialists’ offices. Three experts confirmed validity of the questionnaire. The reliability of the questionnairewas confirmed using the test- retest method on 40 participants (r = 0.82). Data were analyzed using descriptive and analytical statistics by SPSS version 20.0 software. Results Participants demanded information concerning asthma nutrition (79.0%), prevention (78.1%), treatment (77.1%), medications (72.4%) as well as general information (71.4%) and information about etiology of the disease (70.5%), respectively. The results showed that the fathers use the Internet significantly more than the mothers (p=0.0001). There was a statistically significant relationship between participants’ educational level and the type of resources they use to obtain information (P<0.05). Conclusion This study highlighted the most important information needs of parents of children with asthma. The results indicated that most parents have access to the Internet and prefer to get their required asthma information from it.Therefore, providing required information to parents through a website can offer them the opportunity to increase their corresponding level of knowledge and skills.