Awareness Regarding Management and Preventive Measures of Dog bite among Parents in Selected Wards of Nayarambalam Panchayat, Ernakulam, Kerala

The children below the age group younger than 10 years represent the high risk group for dog attacks. Studies revealed that boys between the ages of 5 to 9 are bitten five times more by dogs than any other group of people. Rabies, a disease of antiquity continues to be a major public health problem in India¹. With around 1.06 lakh canine bite cases being reported in 2014–2015 and 40,000 in 2015 alone².

The study design was descriptive research design. The study was conducted among 100 parents of children who met with the eligibility criteria following non probability convenience sampling technique.

None of the parents exhibits adequate knowledge on dog behaviors towards child, 56(56%) are unaware about the dog behaviors, 44(44%) had average knowledge. Nearly 47(47%) of the subjects had inadequate knowledge regarding management of dog bite and 41(41%) had inadequate knowledge regarding the prevention of dog bite. Even though the incidence of dog bite is tremendously increasing in the country, awareness regarding child behaviors towards dog among parents was found to be poor, only 10(10%) had adequate knowledge, 58 (58%) had average knowledge, 32(32%) had inadequate knowledge. Regarding the misbeliefs related to dog bite, 41% of the subjects had misbeliefs related to dog bite.

The study findings revealed that fact most of the dog bite incidents are occurring due to the children are unaware of dog behaviors and not taught by parents or school how to behave or avoid such a situation. Dogs are understanding mostly by nonverbal cues, body language and previous exposure or treatment by humans based on exhibiting their behaviors.