Public awareness of contagious diseases

Samek Ilona, Jańczyk Magdalena, Milanowska Joanna. Public awareness of contagious diseases. Journal of Education, Health and Sport. 2021;11(9):423-429. eISSN 2391-8306. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.12775/JEHS.2021.11.09.054 https://apcz.umk.pl/JEHS/article/view/JEHS.2021.11.09.054 https://zenodo.org/record/5520111 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 contagious diseases Ilona Samek (1)*, Magdalena Jańczyk (1), dr n. o zdr. Joanna Milanowska (2) 1) Student Research Group of Applied Psychology, Medical University of Lublin 2) 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 Joanna Milanowska: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9741-1583 Abstract Introduction: Restrictions against the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in a decrease in other contagious diseases. However, their prevention and treatment are still a topical issue. Purpose: To present the public awareness on infectious diseases taking into account the knowledge of people with medical education. Material and method: The study was conducted by means of the author's questionnaire. 158 questionnaires were collected and analysed. Results: Men and women of different age took part in the survey. Half of the respondents had medical education. The analysis showed that as many as 89.2% of the respondents were aware of the pathogenic factor of influenza, which is the virus. Only a small percentage of respondents had information regarding the number of influenza infections in Poland (10.8%) and worldwide (21.5%). Medics were aware of this in 10.0% and 28.8% respectively. Influenza was admitted by 81.0% of the respondents, while for other infectious disease (except COVID-19) the result was 75.3%. The respondents indicated as the most common route of transmission of infectious diseases the droplet route (66.5%), while fever was the typical symptom (81.0%). Washing hands turned out to be the most important prophylactic behaviour of respondents (50.6%) and especially of students (93.7%). Conclusions: Awareness of infectious diseases among Poles is not at the highest level. Those with medical education have slightly higher knowledge, but it is necessary to introduce educational programmes and update knowledge. Keywords: contagious diseases; awareness; society