Title

Knowledge of rabies among rural community in Chengalpet district, India

Authors

Kamini Bharani¹, Karthikeyan Ramachandran*^{, 2}, Vaishnavi Kommisetty³ & Krishna Prasanth Baalann⁴

Affiliation

¹Associate Professor, Department of Community Medicine, Sri Muthukumaran Medical College and Research Institute, Chennai, India;²Assistant Professor, Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Sree Balaji Medical College & Hospital, Bharath Institute of Higher Education & Research, Chennai, India; ³Assistant Professor, Department of Community Medicine, Meenakshi Medical College & Research Institute, Meenakshi Academy of Higher Education& Research, Chennai, India; ⁴Assistant Professor & Epidemiologist, Department of Community Medicine, Sree Balaji Medical College & Hospital, Bharath Institute of Higher Education& Research, Chennai, India;*Corresponding Author

Email

Kamini Bharani–E-mail: kamininaren85@gmail.com

Karthikeyan Ramachandran–E-mail: drkarthikeyanr@bharathuniv.ac.in

Vaishnavi Kommisetty–E-mail: vaishu0605@gmail.com

Krishna Prasanth Baalann–E-mail: mail2kristain@gmail.com

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received February 17, 2022; Revised March 11, 2022; Accepted March 31, 2022, Published March 31, 2022

The objective of the present study is to assess the knowledge about rabies among the general population of a rural area in Chengalpet district of Tamilnadu. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 361 participants belonging to Paranur village of Chengalpattu district. A pre-tested questionnaire was utilized to gather information on socio-demographic factors, knowledge about rabies, treatment-seeking behavior, and anti-rabies vaccine use among participants with history of dog bite. Among the 361 participants, only 49.5 % were aware of local wound-management procedures, despite the fact that 68% had sufficient knowledge about rabies. The present study highlights. significant association between knowledge regarding rabies with demographic variables such as gender, age, education and occupation Although more than half of the study population had adequate knowledge on rabies, one-fourth of them had no knowledge on first-aid treatments or vaccines at the time of dog bite. This study highlights the need to promote knowledge regarding wound care and post-exposure prophylaxis at the event of a dog bite.

Keywords

Rabies, Knowledge, Post exposure prophylaxis

Citation

Bharani et al. Bioinformation 18(3): 155-159 (2022)

Edited by

P Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.