Knowledge, Attitude and Hygienic Practice towards preventive measures of urinary tract infection among adolescent girls of selected rural areas Sikkim

Abstract

Background: According to WHO, Urinary Tract Infections is the one of the leading cause of morbidity. About half female population report UTI during some point in their lives. It has high mortality and morbidity rates as well. Generally, women are 10 to 30 times prone to develop UTI as compared to men. UTI is treatable and preventable, however if left untreated it can cause serious complications such as bacteraemia and pyelonephritis. Methods: A descriptive correlation survey was conducted among 100 adolescent girls in Central Pendam. The technique used was convenient sampling technique. A structured knowledge questionnaire for assessing knowledge, structured Likert scale for assessing attitude and rating scale to assess the hygienic practice was used for collection of the data. Results: The study findings showed that majority i.e. 88(88%) had moderate knowledge and 12(12%) had low knowledge and none of them had high knowledge on preventive measures of urinary tract infection. The majority i.e. 63(63%) had unfavorable attitude and 37(37%) had favorable attitude. In the hygienic practice, majority i.e. 71(71%) had good hygienic practice, 26(26%) had average hygienic practice and 3(3%) had below average hygienic practice on preventive measures of UTI. The study also showed moderate positive correlation between knowledge and attitude with r value of 0.33. Conclusion: UTI is the most common infection in the female population. The current study finding suggests that majority i.e. 88 % of the participants had moderate knowledge and majority 63% had unfavorable attitude. Therefore having a good knowledge regarding the preventive measures of urinary tract infection among the adolescent girls play an important role in bearing favorable attitude in reducing every chance of development of risk and complication associated with UTI.