A preliminary survey of Autism knowledge and attitude among health care workers and pediatricians in Tehran, Iran

Autism spectrum disease (ASD) is not a common diagnosis for children presenting with neurodevelopmental delay before 36 months in Iran. Although recent years have witnessed improvements in diagnosis of pediatrics psychological disorders the role of referral system starting with healthcare workers (HCW) is not clear. In this study, Pediatricians were randomly selected from four teaching hospital of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran. HCW were randomly selected from 3 urban health care centers in Tehran, Iran. DSM-IV TR criteria for ASD was used to assess knowledge. Participants were asked to rate 16 statements on beliefs about autism to assess attitude.Overall, 122 pediatricians and 90 HCWs with mean ± SD age of 36±4.7 yr and 76.4% being female were enrolled. Pediatricians had significantly higher encounter with autistic patients (18% vs 10%, P-value=0.06) and parents of autistic child (17% vs 12%, P-value=0.07). However, generally, 209 participants (98.6%) declared that they were familiar with autism. There was no statistically significant difference between study groups in rating DSM-IV TR criteria for ASD as necessary for diagnosis . Age, gender, and workingexperience did not differ pediatricians or HCW answers (all P-values> 0.05). Among HCW participants, higher educational level was associated with higher disagreement about autistic children is schizophrenic (P-value=0.01). In addition, HCW with higher working experience had higher agreement rate with autistic children needs special education statement (P-value= 0.04). There are still misconceptions about ASD regarding developmental, cognitive and emotional features in both HCW and pediatricians needed to be educated through national program

کلیدواژه ها:

Autism spectrum disorders ، Attitude ، Knowledge ، Healthcare worker ، Pediatrician