"Awareness of Health Care Workers about Autism in Family Medicine Centers in Cairo"

Abstract

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) defined as range of complex neurodevelopmental disorders, characterized by impairments in social and communication skills as well as restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior and movement. Autism caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors influencing early brain development. The clearest evidence of these autism risk factors involves prenatal, natal and postnatal events. They include advanced parental age at time of conception, maternal illness during pregnancy and certain difficulties during birth, particularly postnatal hypoxia. The current study was conducted to assess knowledge of health care workers about Autism symptoms and signs, to compare the level of knowledge among health care workers and to identify factors affecting the level of knowledge among health care workers. The current study was a Cross sectional study, conducted on 110 participants 67 physicians, 43 nurses from 3 family center in Cairo governorate which are Saraya-El –Qobba, First settlement and EL –Qatamya. The data was collected using an Arabic self-administered modified version of KCAHW (Knowledge about childhood autism among health workers) Questionnaire for general socio-demographic information such as age, gender, marital sta