Assessing knowledge of Saudi mothers with regard to parenting and child developmental milestones.

Background: Knowledge about childrearing and development of children greatly impacts on how parents can adequately and safely raise and interact with a child. This study aimed to assess Saudi mothers' level of knowledge of parenting and developmental milestones and describe the associated factors that affect their knowledge.

Materials and methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia from January to February 2020. Four hundred Saudi mothers with children up to 6 years of age were included in the study from 20 randomly selected primary healthcare centers. The Knowledge of Infant Developmental Inventory Tool (KIDI-P) was used. Relevant demographic data were collected. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software version 21 (SPSS). One-way ANOVA and t-test were used to detect any significant differences in mother's knowledge about developmental milestones related to the research variables.

Results: The majority of mothers (42.2%) were between 28 and 35 years of age. Knowledge about parentaging scored on the average 53.3%, health and safety scored 63.4%, general principles 55.9%, and developmental milestones 51.8%. Data showed a statistically significant relation between mothers' age and parenting subscale (mean = 0.54, standard deviation [SD] = 0.18, P = 0.001), and mothers' education and parenting (mean = 0.52, SD = 0.18, P = 0.015). Significant differences were found between planned pregnancy and parenting (mean = 0.53, SD = 0.178, P = 0.044) and between planned pregnancy and child developmental milestones (mean = 0.51, SD = 0.12, P = 0.042).

Conclusion: Saudi mothers have limited overall knowledge of childrearing and developmental milestones of their children. Mothers' age, parental education, parity, and planned pregnancies had a positive effect on mother's knowledge of parenting and milestones parameters.