Awareness about tuberculosis and RNTCP services among rural people in Nalgonda district, Telangana

Background Tuberculosis (TB), an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis discovered in ancient centuries still remains a major public health problem in India. Lack of awareness about the cause, risk factors, treatment and prevention of TB among rural people is a major challenge to be addressed to reduce disease transmission. Aims To assess the knowledge of TB among rural people. To assess the awareness about RNTCP services. Settings and design Cross-sectional study was conducted in six randomly selected villages attached to a medical college. Methods and materials Houses were selected by systematic random sampling method and younger person was identified as study subject. Data were collected from a sample of 300 by predesigned pretested semi-structured questionnaire. Statistical analysis used Data were presented in proportions with confidence interval and Chi-square test was applied to find the association between variables by using SPSS ver. 23. Results The study showed that 79.6% knew that the cause of TB is bacteria. Majority of the participants 93.6% (95% CI: 90.3, 96.1) knew that TB primarily affects lungs. Subjects were aware of free diagnostic services (85.3%), free treatment services (89%) available in the govt setup. Conclusions Although the awareness of symptoms, causative agent, mode of spread was reasonably good, knowledge on availability of DOTS centres, services offered through RNTCP is still poor among rural population.