Publication:

A social scenario of beliefs and practices among women regarding chickenpox in modern era of medicine

Background All people urban or rural have their own beliefs and practices concerning health and disease. Cultural factors are deeply involved in health and sickness. Some customs and beliefs have positive values while others may be useless or positively harmful.

Methods The present cross sectional study was carried out in District Bareilly of Uttar-Pradesh consisting of 15 blocks. A multi-stage sampling design with a mix of purposive and random approaches will be used. Women were interviewed by house to house visits knowing the fact that who’s children or anyone of the family member who already suffered from chickenpox were chose for the study. Thus total of 200 women interviewed.

Results Out of 200 women, 142(71.0%) women kept the child in separate room. A large number of women, 145 (72.5%) denied their children to play with sick child and 102(51.0%) didn’t bathe their sick child. Majority of the respondents, 181(90.5%) women kept neem leaves besides the sick child’s bed and 167(83.5%) women believed in keeping iron knife beside the sick child’s bed so as to prevent their child to evil eye.

Conclusions Culture is the product of human societies, and man is largely a product of his culture environment. Age-old cultural values show their profound impact on perception of illness among respondents.