You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Poster walk sessions
Primary care I
WHAT DO PARENTS KNOW ABOUT SUN EXPOSURE IN A COAST REGION OF PORTUGAL
  1. C Almeida Fernandes1,
  2. A Fernandes2,
  3. A S Campos3,
  4. A Tome4,
  5. A Morgado5
  1. 1Pediatrics Department, Centro Hospitalar de Setúbal, EPE, Portugal, Setúbal, Portugal
  2. 2Pediatrics Department, Hospital Nossa Sra Rosário, EPE, Barreiro, Portugal
  3. 3Primary Care Department, Fernao Ferro Primary Health Care Center, Fernao Ferro, Portugal
  4. 4Pediatrics Department, Montijo Primary Health Care Center, Montijo, Portugal
  5. 5Dermatology Department, Hospital Nossa Sra Rosário, EPE, Barreiro, Portugal

Abstract

Introduction and Objective Parents are the main determinant in sun exposition habits in children. The aim of this study was to evaluate parents’ knowledge about sun exposure, because Portugal has 2751 km of coast and few campaigns have been done.

Study and Design Questionnaire application to 81 parents on paediatric consultation in a primary healthcare centre from September to December 2007.

Results 95% of parents are white, 52.5% went to school until 9th grade or less. 16.9% think sun exposure is healthy and 24.3% think or don’t know if they can stay in sun longer when using sunscreen. 82.5% think there’s need of protective measures even on cloudy days. Only 3.7% enumerate at least three sun exposure risks. The most enumerated were sunburn (37%), skin cancer (36%) and dehydration (10%).

Conclusions There is a need to initiate campaigns to promote sun education towards improving attitudes and sun protection practices in Portugal.

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.