Public awareness of tropical diseases

Samek Ilona, Jańczyk Magdalena, Wójcik Anna, Białek Justyna, Krawiec Paulina, Milanowska Joanna. Public awareness of tropical diseases. Journal of Education, Health and Sport. 2021;11(9):409-416. eISSN 2391-8306. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.12775/JEHS.2021.11.09.052 https://apcz.umk.pl/JEHS/article/view/JEHS.2021.11.09.052 https://zenodo.org/record/5520098 The journal has had 5 points in Ministry of Science and Higher Education parametric evaluation. § 8. 2) and § 12. 1. 2) 22.02.2019. © The Authors 2021; This article is published with open access at Licensee Open Journal Systems of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author (s) and source are credited. This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non commercial license Share alike. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) which permits unrestricted, non commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited. The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this paper. Received: 15.09.2021. Revised: 21.09.2021. Accepted: 22.09.2021. Public awareness of tropical diseases Ilona Samek (1)*, Magdalena Jańczyk (1), Anna Wójcik (2), Justyna Białek (2), Paulina Krawiec (2), dr n. o zdr. Joanna Milanowska (3) 1) Student Research Group of Applied Psychology, Medical University of Lublin 2) Student Scientific Association at Department of Epidemiology and Clinical Research Methodology, Medical University of Lublin 3) Department of Applied Psychology, Medical University of Lublin * E-mail address: samekilona@gmail.com ORCID ID: Ilona Samek: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5538-5396 Magdalena Jańczyk: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4948-9463 Anna Wójcik, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2697-8600 Justyna Białek, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8447-3395 Paulina Krawiec, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9527-5837 Joanna Milanowska: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9741-1583 Abstract Introduction: Despite medical advances, the prevention and treatment of tropical diseases continue to be a current problem for communities. Purpose: To present the public awareness of tropical diseases. Material and method: The study was conducted by using an author's questionnaire. 158 questionnaires were collected and analysed. Results: The study included women (55.7%) and men (44.3%) of varying ages, nearly half of whom were studying or are studying a medical profession. The analysis showed that 92.4% of the respondents were aware of the factors causing contagious and parasitic diseases. Only 5.0% of respondents expressed opposition to prevention when travelling to tropical countries. Every fourth person planning a trip would not go to a specialist on this issue. Nearly 90% of respondents wanted to be vaccinated before travelling. On the other hand, only 15.2% of respondents knew that malaria is not currently prevented by a vaccine, but by chemoprophylaxis. One in five respondents said there was no need for hygienic food consumption, while more than half (53.8%) had not heard of the rule "cook, steam, peel or forget". Among the most important preventive measures, respondents most often selected hand washing (50.6%), taking care of hygiene (20.2%) and immunization (17.8%). Conclusions: Most of the respondents, especially those with medical education, demonstrated basic knowledge of tropical diseases. However, there is a great need for education, especially about visiting a doctor before travelling, types of prevention and methods of hygienic food consumption. The possibility of implementing programmes to supplement knowledge should be kept in mind. Keywords: tropical diseases; contagious diseases; awareness; society