This presentation has been scheduled in the Med-e-Tel 2017 conference program in a session on “Disease Management, Rehabilitation, Remote Monitoring” on Friday April 7th, 11h00-13h00 (see www.medetel.eu/index.php?rub=educational_program&page=program for preliminary program).

1. It could be concluded that there is a large interest for use of the internet amongst parents of children with chronic kidney disease. The results
obtained may support to the development of further educational and informative contents that use information and communication technology to
support parents/caretakers of CKD children.
5 CONCLUSION
Figure 2 – Results of questions assessing the search experience of respondents (n=89)(%)
The use of Internet can bring benefits to health care when used as a source of information for health and also as a social support to promote
individual´s empowerment. This fact can be very important for parents of children with chronic kidney disease (CKD). In children, the chronic
kidney disease may cause several impairments, presenting high mortality rates compared to healthy children, mainly for individuals who are
undergoing dialysis(1). The needs for continuous care demand skills and abilities that are rarely previously delivered to parents/caretakers. Several
studies have shown that Internet has become an important source of health information for impaired children and their parents(2-3).
We aimed to investigate how the Internet has been used by parents of CKD children to look for health information.
The results were obtained by means of interview-based survey of 111 parents of patients attending a Pediatric Nephrology Service in São Paulo,
Brazil. Information regarding internet use was collect and the results were performed using the statistics package SPSS. Ethics approval for this
study was obtained from the local ethics committee (nº:1.235.212).
Regarding the 89 parents who performed an internet search about health, 80 (90%) had looked about their child’s health condition (Fig 1). More
than half (66%)(53/80) of these parents/caretakers use the Internet daily (Table 1). The most common reason (94%) for using the Internet was to
find more information about of the child’s condition. Ninety-three percent found the Internet useful. Seventy-eight percent found that the Internet
provided further understanding into their child’s condition. However, more than half (52%) prefers not to talk to the physician (Fig 2).
1 INTRODUCTION
2 OBJECTIVE
3 METHODS
4 RESULTS
Deise Garrido(1), Levy Anderson C Alves(1), Taciana M Couto(1), Ana Estela Haddad(1)
(1) University of São Paulo – Brazil
deisegarrido@usp.br
A STUDY OF THE INTERNET USE BY PARENTS OF
CHILDREN WITH CHRONIC KIDNEY DISEASE
66%
94%
78%
93%
52%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Use the Internet daily Most common reason was finding
additional information on children’s
conditions
Internet provided further
understanding on child’s conditions
found useful information prefer not talking to the doctor
Interview-based survey of 111
parents of patients
9% (10/111)
no internet use
91% (101/111) use
internet
88% (89/101)
search for health information
12% (12/101) never search
for heath information
search information about chronic kidney disease
90% (80/89)
References:
1) Warady BA, Chadha V. Chronic kidney disease in children: the global perspective. Pediatr Nephrol. 2007 Dec;22(12):1999–2009.
2) Knapp C, Madden V, Wang H, Sloyer P, Shenkman E. Internet use and eHealth literacy of low-income parents whose children have special health care needs. J Med Internet Res.
2011;13(3):e75.
3) Sebelefsky C, Karner D, Voitl J, Klein F, Voitl P, Bock A. Internet health seeking behaviour of parents attending a general paediatric outpatient clinic: A cross-sectional observational
study. J Telemed Telecare [Internet]. 2015;21(7):400–7.
Table 1 – Variables and descriptive statistical data to the question on
using the Internet to access information about the child's health
problem (n = 89)
No Yes
Variables n (%) n (%)
Frequency of use of the Internet daily 5 (9) 53 (91)
at least once a week 2 (9) 21 (91)
at least once a month 0 (0) 5 (100)
less than once a month 2 (67) 1 (33)
Internet access on mobile No 4 (17) 19 (83)
Yes 5 (8) 61 (92)
Famile Income Up to 1WM 1 (8) 11 (92)
More than 1 and up to 2 WM 1 (2) 41 (98)
More than 2 and up to3 WM 6 (22) 21 (78)
More than 3 WM 1 (13) 7 (88)
Educational level Illiterate/ Elementary 1 (33) 2 (67)
Secondary 7 (11) 57 (90)
University graduate 1 (5) 21 (96)
Age <24 - 34 years 4 (11) 33 (90)
35 - 44 years 1 (3) 31 (97)
45 - 59 years 4 (20) 16 (80)
Figure 1 – Flow chart about search for health information on the internet