ABSTRACT
The objective of this study was to evaluate children's car safety seat usage in a non-random study population of the Capital and surrounding area of Attica and a provincial region in Greece. One or both of the parents of 1556 children (aged 0-4 years) were interviewed. A questionnaire covering car safety seat usage by area of residence, age of parents, educational background, socioeconomic status and the number of siblings was completed. Optimal car safety seat restraint usage in the Attica region was 10.4% for infants 0-6 months old, 37.6% for infants 7-12 months old, 40.9% for children aged 1-2 years and 12% for children aged 3-4 years; the use of restraint systems in the provincial area was even lower at 4.9%, 15.2%, 24% and 6.6%, respectively. The mother's age, number of children and the socioeconomic status of the family seemed to influence the purchase and usage of the car safety seat. Such a high percentage of non-usage of car safety restraint seats has led to the Paediatric Society's initiative to create informative general public educational programmes and to urge governmental legislation regarding mandatory usage of children's car safety seats.
Subject(s)
Automobiles , Infant Equipment/statistics & numerical data , Age Factors , Child, Preschool , Education , Family , Female , Greece , Humans , Infant , Infant, Newborn , Male , Socioeconomic Factors , Surveys and QuestionnairesABSTRACT
UNLABELLED: To investigate the effects of television (TV) viewing on children, 4876 questionnaires on viewing habits completed by Greek children with the assistance of their parents were analysed. The most important results are summarized below. The mean time spent watching TV ranged from 21-32 h per week. The age when children started watching TV correlated with their later educational achievement: good students started watching TV earlier. Bad students, however, watched more TV, as did children from urban areas, and from lower socioeconomic groups. Children from households with more than one TV (especially if it was in the child's bedroom) also watched more. Children who watched more TV were less compliant with TV restrictions and more likely to imitate TV characters. Eating while watching TV was associated with obesity only in teenagers. Most children watched TV from appropriate distances, with the lights on, and with the sound at medium volume. CONCLUSION: This study of TV viewing habits in Greek children shows that certain patterns of watching TV may contribute to poor educational achievement, and obesity, in paediatric patients and, therefore, supports the idea of taking "televiewing histories" when treating these patients.
Subject(s)
Physician's Role , Television , Adolescent , Body Weight , Child , Child, Preschool , Educational Status , Female , Greece , Habits , Humans , Male , PediatricsABSTRACT
A 19-month-old boy with repeated convulsions from the age of 7 months was found to have pseudo-vitamin D deficiency rickets. The convulsions were attributed to hypocalcaemia which is one of the main features of this type of rickets. High doses of vitamin D produced clinical, biochemical and radiographic cure.