Indian Journal of Health Sciences and Biomedical Research KLEU (Jan 2024)
A cross-sectional descriptive study to assess the awareness about tuberculosis, GeneXpert, Nikshay, and 99-DOTS among the representative population of medical students
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis (TB) is a global public health concern. The current study has been done with the objectives to assess the level of awareness about TB, GeneXpert, Nikshay, and 99-DOTS under the National Tuberculosis Elimination Program (NTEP) among the representative population of medical students. MATERIALS AND METHODS: It was a cross-sectional descriptive study conducted over a period of 2 months from October 2022 to November 2022 in a tertiary teaching medical college of Chengalpet district of Tamil Nadu among the medical students of the teaching medical college and hospital. Participants between the age of 18 and 28 years were included in the study with no serious illness. A stratified random sampling method was employed, wherein all the students were asked to fill out the online semi-structured questionnaire. Data entry was done in Microsoft Excel, and statistical analysis was done using SPSS version 16.0. RESULTS: This cross-sectional descriptive study involved 176 undergraduate medical students with a mean age of 22.5 ± 3.5 years, where there are 95 (53.9%) females and 81 (46%) males as the participants of the study. Out of 176 participants, 140 (79.5%) participants had a fairly good awareness of first-line drugs, whereas 36 (20.5%) participants lacked awareness about NTEP, GeneXpert, 99-DOTS, and Nikshay. The majority of the participants reported following most of the TB preventive measures, with hand hygiene and using a handkerchief while coughing and sneezing are the most commonly reported prevention measures. CONCLUSION: The current study reported that, despite being aware of TB as a disease, medical students had low awareness of government-led interventions such as NTEP, Nikshay, 99-DOTS, and GeneXpert. This calls for the need to intensify awareness activities among medical students to strengthen our battle against TB.
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