Awareness & Misconcepts about Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

ABSTRACT

Background: Worldwide sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) continue to be a public health problem. More than 340 million people are infected each year, most of them from developing countries, many women. For prevention it is essential that people know how these disorders occur and how to prevent. Objectives: The present study was conducted to get information about women’s knowledge of STDs, source of their knowledge, misconceptions about mode of transmission and correlation of awareness and misconcepts with age, literacy, socio-economic status in the background of similar information collected a decade back. Material & Method: Information was collected by interview of 1000 randomly included women, by trained social worker with help of structured questionnaire in local language. Results Study revealed that 13% urban and 28.1% rural women had no knowledge et al. In all age groups television was the main source of knowledge. Health personnel were the source of knowledge in 14%. There was no increase in percentage of women who had knowledge of modes of transmission with increasing age. With knowledge in around 73.5% misconceptions were in 21.5%. Misconeptions were like STDs, spread through touching, sharing food and clothing, uncleanliness, urinating in pulic lavatories, excess heat. Conclusion Many women do not have desired knowledge about STDs but need to have. Misconceptions are common. Awareness is essential.