Kamran Ishfaq, Salman Bin Naeem, Tanveer Ahmad, Safia Zainab.
Psycho-Social And Economic Impact Of Thalassemia Major On Patients Families.
Isra Med J Jan ;8(1):24-7.

OBJECTIVES: To identify the psycho-social and economic impact of Thalassemia major on patients' families. STUDY DESIGN: A cross sectional study. PLACE AND DURATION: The study was conducted in the Thalassemia Centre, The Children's Hospital & the Institute of Child Health st th Multan (CH&ICH) from 1 March 2015 to 28 July 2015. METHODOLOGY: The data was collected from the 500 registered Thalassemia major patients' parents who visited Thalassemia Centre of the Children's Hospital & the Institute of Child Health Multan (CH&ICH). The structured interview was used as a tool for data collection with the help of convenient sampling. Written and verbal informed consent was obtained from the parents. Data was analyzed and interpreted by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 20.0 version software. The structured interview was discussed with two senior doctors (>8 years' experience) working in the Thalassemia Centers and public health institutions. It was revised to incorporate the recommendations and improvements. Descriptive and inferential statistics were applied to analyze the data which include: frequency, percent, mean, standard deviation. RESULTS: A total number of 500 thalassemia major patients' parents were recruited in this study who visited to the Thalassemia Centre, The Children's Hospital & the Institute of Child Health Multan for the treatment of their children. The majority of the respondents were mothers (76.2%) while (23.8%) of the respondents were fathers. Of the 500 respondents majority of the parents were belonging to the Saraiki background (43.0%), Urdu (21.6%), Balouchi (19.0%), Sindhi (0.6%), Pathan (5.8%) and Punjabi (5.8%). Grater part of the respondents were unemployed (31.6%), while (14.0%) were businessmen, (24.0%) were private jobs, (4.0%) were doing Government Jobs and immense part of the respondents were laborers (26.4%). The monthly income of about (59.12 %) of the respondents was below PKR 10,000. CONCLUSIONS: A substantial number of parents have psycho-social and economic problems due to the thalassemia disease of their child. The study summarized that the parents of thalassemia major patients and the general public should be sensitized in this regard. Thalassemia prevention program should be introduced to minimize the burden of Thalassemia major patients' parents.

PakMediNet -Pakistan's largest Database of Pakistani Medical Journals - http://www.pakmedinet.com