Awareness, perception and myths towards swine flu in school children of Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh

Abstract

The deadly disease swine flu is, without a speck of doubt, causing a massive havoc among the common people of India and has created fear across the various strata of the society. The objective was to find out the awareness, perception, and myths of school going children of class 9 th to 12 th toward swine flu. The present cross-sectional study was carried out in two randomly selected (using random number table) senior secondary schools of Bareilly among 400 students of class 9 th to 12 th . A total of 200 students were selected from each school. Chi-square test was applied for statistical analysis. Almost all the students (97.75%) have heard about of swine flu and are aware of it as a disease entity. Fever was found to be the main symptom while coughing and sneezing were main way of spread of swine flu known to them. About 97% of the students mention use of mask as most effective way to prevent them from swine flu. Knowledge of availability of medicine was present in less than half of the students. TV was found to be the main source from which they get knowledge (79%), and they are trying to get knowledge (53.2%) of swine flu. Among them, 74% students were taking precaution against swine flu.