Publication:

A study on injection practice and its awareness among adults residing in the rural field practice area of a teaching hospital in South India

Background Injections are some of the most commonly done medical practice worldwide and it is estimated that approximately 16.7 billion injections are administered worldwide. A national study from India published in 2012 found that frequency of injection was 2.9 per person per year.

Methods Community based cross-sectional study was done to asses the practice and awareness of injection use among 119 adults in a rural field practice area of a teaching hospital in South India. A pre-validated, unstructured questionnaire was used to collect the data. It consisted questions about demographic data such as age, sex, education, marital status etc. and questions about injection usage such as type, frequency, route of administration was recorded.

Results Mean age of the study participant was 36.6. More than half 67 (56.3%) used injections in the past 3 months. On assessing the reasons for injection use, most of the participants complained of muscle pain 37 (31.1%). Among those who had injections in the past 3 months 52 (43.7%) received Intramuscular (I.M). 30 percent (35) of the injections were administered by interns followed by medical officer/physician 22 (34.5%) when asked about their general feeling after an injection, majority 78 (65.5%) of them said they felt better after receiving the injection. When asked about diseases transmitted through contaminated needles, 24 (20.2%) said don’t know.

Conclusions Nearly 60 percent of the individuals preferred injections to oral medicine awareness on the risk of injection and diseases transmitted through needles was low.