Analysis of the Inquiry Types of the Pediatric Endocrinologic Diseases Counseled on the Internet

Kwon, Moon Kyung; Yi, So Yeon; Kim, Young Ho; Yang, Seung; Kim, Kwang Nam; Shin, Jeh Hoon; Oh, Phil Soo

Abstract

PURPOSE: On account of the civilization progress and popularization of the internet, we have researched the current public understandings of the pediatric endocrinologic diseases.
METHODS
Analyzable 582 cases of 1,160 cases inquired by the online counsel board for the pediatric endocrinologic diseases from March of 2001 to January of 2004 were classified into four groups.
RESULTS
There were 187 inquiries related to short stature. Most counsels were taken by their mothers. In the height distribution of them, under 3 percentile were 27 (21.4%). About precocious puberty, there were 82 for girls and 8 for boys of the total 110 inquiries. The number of children among 6-10 year old were 62. The main subject matter of inquiry accounted for the great majority as 67 cases was about breast budding. And there were 117 inquiries related to childhood diabetes. The number of children among 1-5 year old were 43 (49.4%). Lastly, there were 149 inquiries related to the thyroid diseases. The number of children under 1 year old were 55 (45.8%).
CONCLUSION
Considering the most cases of the stature under 50 percentile on the current Korean growth curve begun since 1998, a present phase of quite competition of the stature was recognized. And it could be possible to say that the maternal factor for short stature seems more important than the paternal factor, because our data show that the short stature mothers of the short stature children is two folds more than the short stature fathers of them.