Brief Communication (Original). Knowledge, attitude, and practice of rabies prophylaxis among physicians at Indian animal bite clinics

Background: Animal bites in humans are an important public health problem. Timely and correct postexposure prophylaxis for victims is necessary to prevent deaths.

Objectives: We studied the knowledge, attitude, and actual practice of rabies prophylaxis among physicians at animal bite clinics and the relationship between their knowledge and actual practice.

Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among 109 physicians working in eight Indian cities. The data collected were analyzed using SPSS version16.0. The descriptive statistics computed. Spearman’s rank correlation was computed to measure the relationship between knowledge, attitude and practice.

Results: The knowledge, attitude and practice of these anti rabies clinic physicians were inadequate with respect to different parameters. The appropriate life-saving use of immunoglobulins was one of these. The present study also showed that there was a significant difference between knowledge, attitude, and practice.

Conclusions: Knowledge, attitude, and practice needs to be improved through properly designed awareness programmes for all physicians dealing with rabies exposures. Emphasis should be on following current WHO guidelines for post exposure prophylaxis of rabies.