Abstract
A survey on parents' understanding of phimosis in children using a questionnaire was carried out to establish the therapeutic strategy. The questionnaire was mailed to 1466 families that had at least one boy who was born in one of our referral hospital. Three hundred and thirty nurses in our Unuversity Hospital were also involved in this survey. The questions were as follows: what do you think phimosis is? what do you think is the problem of phimosis? what are you going to do with your children with phimosis? and so on. Fathers were also asked about their own experience in the boyhood. Four hundred and nine fathers, 416 mothers, and 323 nurses responded to the questionnaire. Two thirds of them thought true phimosis as phimosis. Uncleanliness, balanitis, and obstacle for sexual life were the major concerns about phimosis but quite a number of them thought that penile cancer and cervical cancer were also big problems. One third of fathers suspected themselves of having phimosis in their boyhood. The majority of the fathers beleive that phimosis is naturally resolved in the middle high school age. It is essentaial to take the natural resolving tendency into consideration in the treatment of phimosis in children.
