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The Community knowledge, attitude and practices regarding Dengue fever in field practice area of urban training health

Background: Dengue is one of the major public health concerns and an emergent disease in India. It has endemicity in some parts of country with periodic outbreaks in the post monsoon period; Punjab is one such region which showed major outbreaks every year. Aims & Objectives: The objective of the study was to assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding dengue fever among community of urban area of Patiala district. Materials and methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out in the month of September and mid October 2013 after the monsoon season when there was sudden increase in the number of dengue cases diagnosed in Rajindra hospital Patiala with majority of them reported from Tripuri area of Patiala. 410 houses were selected by systematic sampling and pre-tested and pre-defined questionnaire were filled by adult member in the house. Data was analyzed by SPSS and MS Excel. Results: Out of 410, respondents, 87.32% were aware about dengue fever. Fever as presenting symptom was known to 90.5% but very less awareness about other symptoms of dengue fever. Majority of them believe that dengue mosquito breeds in dirty water. Mosquito spray and coil/liquid vaporizer is used by most of them during night time only. Most of the respondents neither check their coolers for mosquito breeding nor changed water in their coolers within a week. Television news channels and newspaper are main source of their information. Conclusion: In the light of the present study we recommend the district health authorities to increase the knowledge and application of preventive measures by massive awareness campaign before monsoon season, so as to ensure that knowledge imparted to community get translated into practice as well is the emergent need.