Background: Aerodigestive foreign bodies are common clinical problem that may lead to life threatening complications or sudden death. It's commonly seen in children since they are curious to explore environmental objects with their mouth, while the development of airway protection reflexes and chewing capacity are immature.
Objectives: This study aims to assess the extent of parents' awareness about the danger of foreign objects that can be swallowed or inhaled by their children and how to manage such cases.
Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was used to assess the level of parents' awareness about the danger of swallowing or inhaling foreign objects by their children and to assess their knowledge about dealings with such cases. The data were collected from 459 by a distributed questionnaire among parents in Al-sharqiya.
Results: 60.3% of participants were aware of aerodigestive foreign bodies.Regarding the management of child with aerodigestive foreign bodies in different age groups. For child with age group 1 year and less, about (34.9%) of participants were aware of the managment. However, there is misunderstanding of managing child with age 5 years and less where only 5.6% of participants were aware of the management in this age group. As regards the children more than 5 years old, only 36.2% of parents were aware of the management.
Conclusion: The current study showed that most parents are lacking knowledge about the managment of this problem which reflect the importance of education and increasing the awareness among them to reduce the morbidly and mortality rate among children.