Avaliação do conhecimento sobre a leishmaniose visceral antes e depois de intervenção educacional em proprietários de cães da cidade de Cruz das Almas, Recôncavo da Bahia

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Brito, Juliana Albuquerque De Santos, Rafael Anias Dos Mendonça, Beatriz Costa De Ribeiro, Raul Rio
Copyright Year	2015
Abstract	Parasitic diseases are perpetuated by lack of information and or preventive actions. The purpose of this study was to assess the dog owners' knowledge about visceral leishmaniasis (VL) before and after an educational intervention in the city of Cruz das Almas, Bahia. In order to do so, 162 dog owners from six predefined neighborhoods volunteered to participate in an interview and answer a questionnaire about various aspects of the disease. At the end of the interview, the participants were given basic information and informational materials. Three months after the educational intervention, 60 dog owners were randomly chosen and assessed using the same questionnaire to ascertain how much about VL they had assimilated. The survey conducted prior to the educational activity indicated that only 5.5% (9/162) of the 162 participants understood the meaning of the term zoonosis, and only 3.7% (6/162) were able to give at least one example of a zoonotic disease. Three months after the intervention there was a statistically significant increase (p<0.05) of awareness of this information, indicated by the fact that 28.3% (17/60) of the owners were familiar with the term “zoonosis” and 18.3% (11/60) were able to describe at least one zoonotic disease correctly. This represented an almost five-fold increase in the percentage of knowledge about the two analyzed parameters. Prior to the intervention, about 42% of the dog owners believed they knew about VL/kala-azar, but only 1.2% (2/68) were able to describe its transmission correctly. The post-assessment indicated that this value increased significantly (p<0.05) to 40% (24/60). The role of dogs in the disease as well as the awareness about the favorable environment for the reproduction of sand flies both showed a statistically significant percentage increase (p<0.05) from 1.2% (2/162) to 15% (9/60) and from 0% (0/162) to 21.7% (13/60), respectively. In general, the neighborhood where the highest level of awareness was proved before the intervention was also the one with the highest level of education among the participants, since about 35.7% (5/14) of them had university degrees, in contrast to the approximately 4% (6/148) of participants from the other neighborhoods. Dog owners’ from the city of Cruz das Almas, Reconcavo da Bahia, knew little about VL, which can be reversed significantly after health education activities. Therefore, it reinforces the need for maintaining and expanding educational interventions to control VL and other diseases of interest to public health in the city.
Starting Page	104
Ending Page	114
Page Count	11
File Format	PDF HTM / HTML
Volume Number	11
Alternate Webpage(s)	http://ojs.unesp.br/index.php/revista_proex/article/download/1084/1106
Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article