Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com Introduction Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common major congenital anomaly, representing a major global health problem. The incidence is 8 -19 per 1000 birth. 1 Congenital heart defects account for one third of babies with significant congenital anomalies diagnosed prenatally or in infancy. 2 It has been shown that having an accurate understanding of any chronic condition contributes to improved satisfaction with medical care, less distress, less confusion, better compliance with treatment and an improved emotional state. 3 Specifically for children with CHD, parents having a sound knowledge of their child’s condition, treatment and prevention of complications has been shown to promote better health related behaviour in their child by bettering their understanding of the cardiac problem, improving compliance with treatment and avoiding risky behaviour. 4 It is fundamental for patient engagement that they be health literate. This is more than just being able to read and understand health information it is about empowering them to exercise their autonomy. Patients with low health literacy have been shown to have poorer health status, are less likely to adhere to the treatment regimen and self-care plans, higher rates of hospital admission, experience more treatment and drug errors, and make less use of preventive services and measures. 5 Recently there have been a massive improvement in therapy for congenital heart disease , both surgically and catheter based, despite this improvement several recent studies have shown that understanding of illness by children, adolescents, and adults with congenital heart disease remains far from ideal. 4 Methods This is cross-sectional questionnaire based survey parents who were accompanying their children to the outpatient clinic of Ahmed Gasim Cardiac Centre were recruited over a three month period. We excluded newly diagnosed children with congenital Heart Disease from the study. Ethical approval for the study was taken from the hospital ethical committee, Verbal and written consent were obtained from the parents after they had the study described to them. A pretested questionnaire including data of the patients such as age, gender, and residence, it also includes the demographic data of the parents including age, educational level, occupation, consanguinity, and socioeconomic status. A revised history, general and cardiovascular examination of the children was done to confirm the diagnosis and the information provided by the parents. From the medical records, some data was collected such as cardiac diagnosis, previous cardiac operations or cardiac catheterizations. J Pediatr Neonatal Care. 2018;8(6):262‒266. 262 ©2018 Elshazali et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially. Parent’s knowledge about diagnosis and management of their children with congenital heart diseases in Khartoum, Sudan Volume 8 Issue 6 - 2018 Osama Hafiz Elshazali, 1 Hafiz Osama Hafiz El Shazali, 2 Eiman Mohamed Ahmed Yousif, 2 Hafiz El Shazali Osman 1 1 Department of Paediatrics, University of Khartoum, Sudan 2 Ahmed Gasim Children Hospital, Khartoum North, Sudan Correspondence: Osama Hafiz Elshazali, Associate Professor, Department of Paediatrics, University of Khartoum, Faculty of Medicine, University of Khartoum, PO Box 102, Khartoum, Sudan, Tel +249912325580, Email Received: April 16, 2018 | Published: November 16, 2018 Abstract Background: Congenital heart defects (CHD) are the most common type of birth defects and remain the leading cause of death from congenital malformations. Objectives: To assess the parent’s knowledge regarding diagnosis and management of their children with CHD. Methods: This is a prospective questionnaire based study, conducted in Ahmed Gasim cardiac Centre, A tertiary care centre in Khartoum state, the study period was from 1st June to 31st August of 2017. Results: The total study population was 120 children with congenital heart disease and their parents. Of these children, males were 65 (54.2%) and females were 55 (45.8%). The children’s age ranged from 2months to 16years. The study showed that of these patients 76.7% had a cyanotic CHD with VSD being the commonest lesion found in 45% of them, while 23.3% of them had cyanotic CHD and TOF represented the most common lesion in 18.3% of them. For most of the parents the diagnosis of their children heart problem was explained to them, 78.3% of them knew correctly their children cardiac lesions, and 95.8% of them knew that it is congenital in origin, unfortunately 63.3% of them did not know the name of their children drugs and only 9.2% of them knew the side effects of their children’s medications. By using a knowledge score, 69 of these parents (57.5%) displayed good knowledge Being an urban residents, younger in age and better educated all have a positive contribution to the amount of knowledge Conclusion: As CHD, being one of the commonest congenital problems affecting children and their parents. The knowledge of the parents should be assessed and measures should be implemented to improve the knowledge of the parents, empowerment of the parents will improve the well being of children with CHD. Journal of Pediatrics & Neonatal Care Research Article Open Access