188061

Knowledge, Attitude and Practices of caregivers for patients with leprosy

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Last updated: 05 Jan 2025

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Abstract

Background: Leprosy is one of the oldest diseases known to humanity, it remains largely misunderstood. Misconceptions about leprosy lead to stigma towards people with the disease. In the lives of people affected by leprosy are caregivers who take on different roles in their daily upkeep. Family practices are keys for preventing illness, infection and disabilities. They support patient duringLong-term treatment of leprosy. Egypt is one of the global list of twenty two high-burden countries for leprosy. Aim: The study aimed to assess knowledge, attitude and practices about leprosy among family caregivers of leprosy patients. Egypt is one of the global lists of twenty-two high-burden countries for leprosy. Study design: A cross-sectional descriptive design. Subject: A convenience sample of 165 caregivers was selected. Setting: This study was carried out at the Western Dermatology and leprosy clinic at Minia City. Tools: A structured interview questionnaire was used to assess caregivers' knowledge, attitude and practices regarding leprosy, in addition to sociodemographic characters of the participants. Results: The results showed that 84% of caregivers had poor knowledge about leprosy, 77% had negative attitude and 87.9% of them had poor practices. Educated participants had higher mean knowledge score (2.58±1.35) and lower negative attitude level (20.09±6.01) than non-educated (2.35±0.98), and (21.24±5.13), respectively, however marital status and duration of caregiving were statistically significant factors related to the level of practice. Conclusion: This study has revealed deficiencies in the knowledge, attitude and practices among the family members of patients with leprosy. Except for the education level, no statistically significant relation between family caregivers' sociodemographic characteristics and their level of knowledge or attitude about leprosy. Married caregivers and those who caring for patients more than 20 years had higher practice scores. Recommendation: Applying health education programs about leprosy for family caregivers of patients with leprosy as continued health education and behavior change activities are still the only tool to increase awareness regarding leprosy to get rid of misconception and stigma related to leprosy at community level, also design and disseminate related booklets and brochures to raise caregivers and public awareness regarding leprosy.

DOI

10.21608/msnj.2021.188061

Keywords

Knowledge, Attitude, Practice, Family caregiver, Leprosy

Authors

First Name

Abeer

Last Name

Mohamed

MiddleName

Omran

Affiliation

Bsc. in Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Minia University

Email

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Eman

Last Name

Ahmed

MiddleName

Ramadan

Affiliation

Assistant. professor of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine – Minia University

Email

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Manar

Last Name

Mohamed

MiddleName

Demien

Affiliation

Lecturer of Community Health Nursing, Faculty of Nursing – Minia University

Email

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City

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Orcid

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Volume

009

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

27044

Issue Date

2021-06-01

Receive Date

2021-03-04

Publish Date

2021-06-30

Page Start

17

Page End

25

Print ISSN

2537-012X

Online ISSN

2785-9797

Link

https://msnj.journals.ekb.eg/article_188061.html

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https://msnj.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=188061

Order

3

Type

Original articles

Type Code

2,049

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Minia Scientific Nursing Journal

Publication Link

https://msnj.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Knowledge, Attitude and Practices of caregivers for patients with leprosy

Details

Type

Article

Created At

23 Jan 2023