Public Awareness of Vitamin D Deficiency among Children in Najran City and the Role of Primary Health Care Centers in Raising Their Awareness

Abstract

Background: Vitamin D is one of fat-soluble vitamins. It has of great importance in increasing intestinal absorption of calcium, magnesium, phosphate, and zinc. Sun is the main source for this vitamin and there are few foods that contain it, for example milk and egg. From a long standing, vitamin D deficiency has been a health problem in the world. Vitamin D has great importance in the growth of bone, so the deficiency of it or imbalance of its metabolism inside the body leads to major problems, most notably of them is rickets among children. Objectives: This is a cross-sectional study, aiming to study the awareness of public regarding vitamin D deficiency among children and to reveal the role of primary health care in raising people's awareness of vitamin D deficiency. Materials and methods: Electronic questionnaires are used to collect data. They contain personal sociodemographic characteristics, information about vitamin D deficiency and the role of primary health care in raising people's awareness of vitamin D deficiency. The study recruits 500 participants; medical field workers were not included in the study. Data were analyzed using SSPS version 22. Results: It was observed that 89% of the total sample size has knowledge on vitamin D where 94.3% of mothers heard about vitamin D, 68% knew that vitamin D is important, and 72.11% believed that vitamin D is manufactured in the body. More than two thirds (69.83%) said that the ultraviolet sun-rays is the main source of vitamin D and 68.88% of parents declared that they had attend a lecture given by a physician in in the primary health care center on the importance of vitamin D where, fathers (40.2%) were more than mothers (26.6%) in getting their information. Conclusion: More research is needed to assess the level of community awareness as it is the best solution to reduce or eliminate the problem. Health education campaigns about vitamin D and its importance with more intensification in Men places as they had a low awareness. Training of primary health care physicians and their supervision for raising awareness of their community.