Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Livestock Farmers in Brucellosis Control

Abstract

Background and Objective: brucellosis is one of the most common zoonosis diseases. Brucellosis is a systemic disease and affected several organs and tissue in human. This study was performed to determine the knowledge, attitude and practice about brucellosis control among livestock farmers. Methods: This descriptive-analytic study, was performed on 300 rural literate livestock farmers in BuinZahra, Qazvin Iran during 2019. The knowledge, attitude, and practice, the related factors and demographic characteristics such as age, education level and family count were evaluated by structured six-part questionnaire including 30 questions. Results: The mean age of the subjects was 41.3±16.4 years. Although 90.7% had heard of brucellosis, only 14% had previous trained. There was a positive attitude about the use of methods to reduce the risk of infection in the family and the seriousness of the issue of animal brucellosis in 19% and 64% of cases, respectively. About 94.7% were attended to veterinarian in suspected cases and 96.7% examined the new animals. 97% were uses of new cheese and milk but the milk was boiled by 89.3%. The mean knowledge was 5.3 ranging from 0 to 8 points in them. There was a statistically significant difference in the knowledge score of individuals according to the information source (P<0.05). Knowledge score and number of household members had positive correlation (r=0.135, P=0.019). Conclusion: There is medium-level knowledge about brucellosis in livestock farmers. The attitude and some actions (such as dealing with infected livestock) needed to be improved. The probable reason is the high cost of behavior modification in some areas, which has provided the gap between knowledge, attitude and behavior in this area.

Keywords

• brucellosis
• health knowledge
• attitudes
• practice