Knowledge, Belief and Attitude of the Community towards Leprosy Patients in Gindeberet Woreda, West Shewa Zone

Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease of public health importance and one of the leading causes of permanent physical disability. Nevertheless, the drop in prevalence following multidrug therapy has resulted in the neglect of leprosy. The prevalence and annual incidence of new cases of leprosy is persistently high for the past 10 years in Ethiopia. The purpose of this study was to examine the knowledge, belief and attitude of the community towards leprosy patients in Gindeberet Woreda, Oromia region, Ethiopia. A community based cross sectional survey design was carried out on a sample of 571 randomly selected adults. A self-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect the data. Descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test, one-way ANOVA, point bi-serial and Chi-square were utilized to analyze the collected data. As a result, 453 (79.3%) and 351 (61.5%) of respondents had poor knowledge and negative attitude towards leprosy respectively. More specifically, 263 (48.7%) of the respondents correctly believed that leprosy was caused by germs. However, 431 (75.5%), 413 (72.3%), 355(62.2%), 333 (58.3%) and 275 (48.1%) of respondents were attributed vitamin deficiency, unclean environment, impure blood, eating too much cooling food and hereditary as the causes of leprosy while only 14% and 10.5% 10.5% believed that leprosy was a punishment for sins/curse and evil spirits respectively. Hence, nearly half of respondents stated that leprosy could be transmitted from mother to infant and personal contact. Also, 140(24.5%) correctly reported that leprosy could be treated with anti-leprosy drugs. In fact, 107 (36.15%) did not want to sit with leprosy patients. Besides, 67% of the respondents were not able to list down the cardinal signs of leprosy correctly and 71% didn't know the patho-physiology of disability in leprosy. In this study, the level of leprosy knowledge was associated with the sex, age, educational status, and religion of respondents. Moreover, sex, age and educational status had statistically significant effect on respondents' attitude towards leprosy. In addition, among all examined variables, only sex and educational status had an interaction effect on respondents' attitude towards leprosy. Strong positive correlation was observed between the knowledge and attitudes of the community towards leprosy patients. In conclusion, an overall lack of knowledge and prevalence of delusion regarding the cause, transmission and outcome of leprosy was identified among the community. Stigmatizing attitudes towards leprosy patients were also observed. Therefore, there is a need to educate the community in order to alleviate the stigma and promote positive attitude towards leprosy.