Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices about Rabies Prevention and Control among People Recieving Veterinary Services at the Rabies Control Section, Office of Veterinary Public Health, Health Department, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration

Abstract

Rabies is highly fatal disease transmitted from animals to man. It is a major public health problem in many countries around the world including Thailand. Knowledge, attitudes, and proper practices are very important in the prevention and control of rabies. This study aimed to explore knowledge, attitudes and practices in rabies prevention and control; and study various factors related to the practices of rabies prevention and control among people who came to seek for veterinary services at the rabies control section, Veterinary Public Health Division, Health Department, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration. Data were collected from 1,034 samples; and were analyzed using statistics, percentage, mean, standard deviation. And analyze demographic factors related to rabies prevention and control practices with Chisquare statistics. The significance level was set at 0.05. It was found that that the studied group had a high level of knowledge and understanding: 60.0% of them had the correct knowledge. Up to 71.2% of them had a good attitudes on the rabies control; and 81.7% had a good level of practices on rabies prevention and control. There were demographic factors, such as gender, age, occupation, education, income which had a significant relationship with practices which was in consistent with the theory of the relationship between knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP). Hence provision of more knowledge and accurate understanding and positive attitudes on rabies prevention should be motivated in order for Bangkok to become rabies free both in human and animals.