Factors Related to Health Behavior of Rabies Exposure in Mae Ai District, Chiang Mai Province

Abstract

ABSTRACT

The cross-sectional descriptive study had an objective to investigate factors related to health behaviors of suspected rabies-exposed persons in Mae Ai district hospital, Chiang Mai province. A prepared questionnaire as an instrument was for collecting data, passed an index of consistency test value at 0.83, by an interview with 161 respondents who exposed to suspected rabies animals between February to March 2018. The interview took place on the day of the patients visited in Mae Ai hospital. The respondents manually answered a questionnaire, which had been already tested for its content validity and reliability before applied to the respondents. The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics such as number, percentage and standard deviation and correlation test which performed relationships between the variables. Results revealed that the percentages greater than a half of rabies-exposed persons were females (50.9%), Thai nationality (92.5%), and were eligible for the health care coverage (79.5%). The mode of exposure was occurred from an animal bite (87.6%). The site of wound was mostly found on the thigh region (37.3%) which occurred from the injured persons provoked the animals (42.0%). In Chiang Mai, dogs are usually found as a carrier of rabies (68.9%). Health behaviors of the respondents after exposure with suspected animals were incorrect such as did not clean the wound properly and immediately after the bites and before seeing the doctor. The results of this study will be a database for planning the policy of the municipality government in order to publicize the knowledge of rabies to people particularly the severity, self-prevention from rabies infection and the wound dressing practices after rabies exposure in their community in a future.