Knowledge, Attitude and Practices regarding Brucellosis among Medical Practitioners of Karachi

Abstract

BACKGROUND:
 Brucellosis presents with generalized symptomatology and in a country like Pakistan it is commonly misdiagnosed by the medical practitioners as any endemic disease. We aim to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices regarding Brucellosis among the medical practitioners of Karachi and differences in knowledge scores across gender and working sectors. The study was conducted from January 2017 to April 2017 in Karachi.
 METHODS:
 Our study was a cross-sectional KAP survey, conducted with the help of a structured questionnaire among 217 medical practitioners by convenient sampling. They were divided into two groups with respect to workplace: Group 1 and Group 2. The results were analyzed using SPSS version 21. Chi-square test was used to establish associations.
 RESULTS: 
 The study showed that although 89.9% of the medical practitioners have heard about brucellosis, yet only 27.6% were able to identify Brucellosis as the second most emerging zoonotic disease. Across gender, more female than male medical practitioners achieved good knowledge score. In group 1, private sector whereas in group 2, teaching hospital medical practitioners had higher percentage of good score. In the attitude section, 47.5% of the practitioners strongly agreed that Continuing Medical Education (CME) seminars help in creating awareness about diseases. In practice, poor response was recorded for inquiry of questions about Brucellosis in medical history despite of good knowledge about their importance
 CONCLUSION:
 The study recognized a gap in knowledge and practices of the medical practitioners hence, there is a need to conduct CME Sessions about the neglected disease.
 KEYWORDS: Brucellosis, Neuro-brucellosis, Zoonosis, Neglected Disease, Awareness, Health Belief Model, KAP Study, CME