A hospital-based study on knowledge and attitude related to vitiligo among adults visiting a tertiary health facility of central India

Abstract

Background:Vitiligo is one of the common stigmatizing dermatosis in the Indian society and the vitiligo patients have to face significant psychological hurt and social neglect. The severity of the stigma is related to the society's attitude and knowledge about it.Aims and Objectives:To document the prevalent knowledge and attitude in general public towards vitiligo patients, and to identify the determinants of good/poor knowledge and attitude.Materials and Methods:A systematic random sampling technique was adopted to enroll 700 adult participants visiting an urban tertiary healthcare facility of central India. We developed a questionnaire to collect information on knowledge and attitude of the participants. A composite score was developed for good knowledge and attitude and performance of the participants was compared with the selected determinants. Data analysis was conducted by Stata software version 11.Results:The overall knowledge score was good for 66.3% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 62.8%, 69.8%) of the participants. However, the score for attitude was comparatively poor i.e., only 16.9% (95% CI: 13.9%, 19.5%). None of the studied parameters could be significantly correlated with the knowledge score. Being married and being engaged in a health care related occupation were significant predictors of good attitude levels with P = 0.042 and 0.034 respectively, whereas female gender was the significant predictor for poor attitude with an odds ratio of 0.54 (95% CI: 0.33, 0.9) and P = 0.018.Conclusions:There were widespread myths prevalent about vitiligo in the studied population. The knowledge scores were better than attitude scores.

Public Knowledge and Attitudes towards Vitiligo: A Survey in Mekelle City, Northern Ethiopia

“…ese findings were also supported by Asati and his colleagues [23]. Besides, the majority of the respondents recognized that vitiligo is more prevalent and exaggerated with exposure to psychological stress.…”

Knowledge, attitude and behaviour study of vitiligo among general population

“…A sizeable respondents still have a negative attitude towards vitiligo patients by avoiding shaking hands with a them (53.8). The overall attitude was comparatively poor which resembles same as a hospital-based study conducted by C.M Gupta et al 6 on knowledge and attitude related to vitiligo among adults visiting a tertiary health facility of central India.…”

Prevalent Beliefs and Attitude toward Vitiligo among Public in Al Baha Province, Southern Saudi Arabia

“…Our results are fairly supporting Alshahrani findings, where the majority (84.3%) of our sample didn't consider vitiligo as a killer disease. In our study, of all the population (44.4%) thought that the disease is exaggerated by stress and anxiety, while only (21.6%) recognized it as an autoimmune indings regarding the existence of a treatment and the association with a special type of food are quite similar to what is [17] have indicated generally poor scores for attitudes, and good scores for the While they could not find any significant association between knowledge and attitude, in our study, negative attitudes were strongly associated with poor knowledge. The significance was highest with those who think that gecko and its saliva are causing vitiligo; value=0.003), eat food -value=0.001), value0.010), marry a value=0.006), and would stare value 0.042).…”

“…Asati et al [17] have indicated generally poor scores for attitudes, and good scores for the knowledge. While they could not find any significant association between knowledge and attitude, in our study, negative attitudes were strongly associated with poor knowledge.…”

“…The common misconceptions regarding the cause are as follow; infections, inheritance, exposure to chemicals, nutrients deficiency and consumption of the milk. Other myths include that the disease is untreatable, precancerous, or exaggerated by the sun [13,[16][17].…”