Information and Anxiety Levels of the Parents about Using Topical Corticosteroids on Children

Objective: Corticosteroid phobia is an important factor affecting therapy compliance negatively in daily practice. There is no study on the attitudes of the general population and health care workers on this issue in our country. Our objective was to investigate the information and anxiety levels of parents about topical medications containing corticosteroids, and their effects on treatment. Material and Methods: A total of 300 individuals that consisted of the parents of the patients who were admitted to the pediatric clinics for various health reasons and the health care workers of our hospital were asked to complete a questionnaire on this topic. The items in the questionnaire consisted of questions on whether the parents had previously used cortisone-based ointments on their children, whether they had any concerns regarding the issue, and what side effects, in their opinion, might develop in case the drug was applied on the skin. Results: The anxiety rates were found to be 20.5% (n=41) in the patient’s parents group, and 54% (n=54) in the health care workers group. Due to anxiety, 40% of the patient’s parents group never applied the treatment, and 24 % of them discontinued the treatment early. As regards the open-ended question on why people felt anxiety about steroids, 79% reported possible side effects, 8.32% hormonal disorder, 4.16% diabetes, 4.16% gaining weight, and 4.16% blemishing of skin. Conclusion: We detected an unnecessary phobia regarding steroids in the general population and even in health care workers with increasing education level and the anxiety affected the treatment process negatively. Thus, we suggest that physicians consider this fact and provide suffi cient information to parents prior to treatment to affect the results of the treatment positively.