Publication:

A comparative study on awareness about tuberculosis among urban and rural P.U. college students of Davangere taluk, Karnataka, India

Background Tuberculosis continues to be a major public health problem in  our  country  and  is  the  largest  cause  of  loss of healthy  life  years  in  the productive age. Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme  depends  on  passive  reporting  of  the  chest  symptomatic  to  the  health  institution. Therefore, it is important that the basic knowledge about the disease and the availability of free treatment is clear among the individual in the community.

Methods A cross sectional study was conducted among 360 students of I and II PU College students of urban and rural area of Davangere Taluk, Karnataka. Selection of schools and students was done by simple random and systematic random sampling method. Data collection was done by using predesigned, pretested structured proforma & analyzed by using software SPSS version17.

Results Our study results show that awareness with regard to severity (64.4%), causative agent (72.8%), whether spreads from person to person (56.7%), mode of transmission(38.9%), symptoms(78.9%)  and whom to consult if signs of TB are detected (82.8%) of rural students was better compared to urban students and with regards to affected organ (72.8%), among whom TB is commonly seen(85%), diagnosis(78.9%), whether TB is curable (73.3%), availability of diagnostic and treatment facilities (71.7%), prevention (85%) and what advice given to TB patient (86.1%)  awareness was better among urban students compared  to rural students.

Conclusions Our study findings indicated that overall the awareness was better among urban students compared to rural students & 53% of the rural students had wrong.