Abstract

Play is essential to growth and development because it contributes to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth. Play also offers an ideal opportunity of parents to engage fully with their children. Play is so important to optimal child growth development that it has been recognized by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights as a right of every child. Today more than ever before, manufactures of toys and play equipment emphasize the educational value of their products. Similarly it is important to the parents also to know the importance of play.

Objective: To assess the knowledge of mothers on different types of play and it’s important for children.

Methodology: A descriptive study was under taken to assess the knowledge regarding Play Therapy and its importance among mothers with children age group of 0-12 years at Periyakalapet, Puducherry. A sample of 20 mothers with children was selected by convenient sampling technique. The interview schedule was used to assess the knowledge of the mother regarding play therapy and its importance. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Findings: The findings of the study showed that the ages of the mothers were between 26-36 years and majority had two children. With regards to their knowledge on play therapy majority of mothers got satisfactory knowledge on introduction (i.e. 75%) but with other items of play therapy they had poor knowledge in advantages of play (i.e. 47.85%). There was a need for health education regarding play and its importance among mothers.

Keywords: Nursing; Demographic; Therapy; Children

Introduction

Play is an important medium for children for several reasons. Play is a natural language from which children express themselves. Developmentally, play bridges the gap between concrete experience and abstract thought. Play offers children the opportunity to organize their real-life experiences that are often complicated and abstract in nature. Child gains a sense of control through play and also learns coping skills. Play therapy utilizes this understanding of children by offering children a therapeutic environment for their play [1-4].

Play allows children to use their creativity while developing them imagination, dexterity and physical, cognitive and emotional strength. Play is important to healthy brain development. It is through play that children at a very early age engage and interact in the world around them play allows children to create and explore a world they can master, congruity their fears while practicing adult roles, sometimes in conjunction with other children or adult care givers [5-8].

Despite the benefits derived from play for both children’s and parents, time for free play has been markedly reduced for some children due to some causes [9]

1. Lack of knowledge of parents regarding to play material and its uses.

2. Hurried life style and urbanization

3. Changes in family structure

4. Increased attention to academics

Recent literature encourages the use of play therapy as a counseling medium for elementary school counselors. In addition, play therapy helps school counselors in the implementation of the National Standards developed by the American School Counselor Association (ASCA). Since the turn of the present century, there has been radical shift in attitudes towards the play in a result of scientific studies what play can do for the child growth and development. Instead of regarding play of as a waste of time, scientist have pointed out that it is a valuable learning experience [10].

Objectives

1. To assess the knowledge among mothers regarding play therapy.

2. To associate the knowledge status with the selected demographic variables like age, religion education, type of family, No. of children, Occupation and income.

Assumption

It is assumed that the mothers will have inadequate knowledge regarding Play Therapy at different age group of children.

Methodology

Descriptive research design was selected for the present study. The study was conducted at Periyakalapet Village, Puducherry. Periyakalapet comes under the control of Oulgarpet municipality. The sample for this study consists of mothers who have children in the age group between 0-12 years and the sample size is 20. A convenient sampling technique was employed to select the mothers of children of 0-12 years at Periyakalapet, Puducherry.

Development of tool

A structured interview schedule with 2 sections A & B was constructed based on the objectives. The section ‘A’ consists of the demographic data and section ‘B’ consists of knowledge questions on various aspects of play. There are 31 items in the interview schedule related to play which includes, introduction (3), definition (1), types of play (13), advantage of play (7), safety precautions (7). Each question has multiple choice answers with one correct answer. One mark was awarded for each correct answer and zero mark for wrong answer.

Scoring key

Below–50% – Poor knowledge
50–70% – Average
70–80% – Satisfactory
>80% – Good

Validity and reliability

The content validity was obtained from experts in the concerned field and reliability of the tool was tested by test retest method. The r=0.8, considered the tool was reliable.

Data Collection Procedure

Permission was obtained from the concerned authority for conducting the study. The mothers having children in the age group of 0-12 years were selected by convenient sampling technique by the investigator and the data was collected from them by interview technique. All the mothers were explained and assured that the information were only for the study purpose. The data was collected by the investigator according to the availability of the samples in the selected setting.

Results and Findings

The study result shows that majority of mother 14(70%) are in the age group between 26-35 yrs, 15 (75%) had education up to High school and 1(15%) was uneducated and 1(15%) had Primary education. 19 (95%) mothers were nuclear family. majority 11(55%) of mothers had 2 children, 7(35%) had 1 child and only 2(10%) had 3 children. I2 (60%) of the mothers were working mothers, whereas 8(40%) were non-working.

With regards to their knowledge on play and its importance for children it shows that mothers got poor knowledge of 47.85% regarding “Advantages of play” when compared with other items of play (Figure 1). There is no significant association found with any of the demographic variables and knowledge of the mothers regarding play therapy (p>0.05).

Implications

The findings of the study have several implications for nursing practice, general education, nursing education and nursing administration and nursing research.

Nursing practice

The nurse’s working in the community and clinical setting should provide health education as on integrated part of nursing profession and also stress the importance of play among children.

Planned health teaching program are to be scheduled in the clinical set up on fixed days with time for the mothers as well as family members.

Small booklets are to be provided to the mother/family members in understand able language with appropriate picture and explanation to improve their knowledge.

Nursing education

The pediatric nursing and general nursing curriculum needs to be strengthened to enable nursing students to assess the knowledge of play among mothers, thus promoting the health status of children in community. When nurse educators plan to instruct students, should provide adequate opportunity for them to educate mother and public in both community and clinical setting the study stresses the significance of short term courses, in service education in children health aspect to advance the knowledge in the field of preventive medicine.

Nursing administration

Leaders in nursing confronted to undertake the health needs of the vulnerable by effective organization and management. The administrator should take active part in the policy making, developing protocol, procedure and standing order related to mother’s education.

The nursing administrator should give special attention on the proper selection placement and effective utilization of the nurses in all areas within the available resource giving importance for their creativity interest and ability in educating the mother.

Nursing research

The findings of the study help the professional nurse and students as a baseline data for further study in this field. Various research projects should be done in future to bring out the attitude of the people and the existing knowledge at various play therapies.

Recommendations

This study can be replicated on a large sample

Similar studies can be conducted in different setting to validate the findings.

An experimental study can be conducted by means of pretest and post test.

A comparative study can be done between working and now-working women.

A comparative study may be attempted between the mothers of urban and rural community.

A Descriptive study can be undertaken to assess the attitude of mothers/ parents towards play.

References

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