Abstract

DIAZ MURILLO, MARÍA DEL PILAR et al. KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES AND PRACTICES ABOUT THE SOIL TRANSMITTED HELMINTHS IN A RURAL COMMUNITY OF COLOMBIA. rev.fac.med [online]. 2010, vol.18, n.1, pp.12-22. ISSN 0121-5256.

Geohelminthiasis are a group of soil-transmitted parasitic diseases that specially affect children in the developing world. This article shows the results of a work which aimed to explore and to describe the knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding geohelminthiasis in children and parents from a Colombian rural area, in order to design a health education program. It was an ethnographic, qualitative study, undertaken in La Virgen, Cundinamarca, Colombia. The validity was given by the triangulation and its confiability from the interpretative concordance using the information obtained from different sources and researchers. The techniques used were interviews, survey, discussion groups, reflexivity groups and observations in situ. Survey data were processed in EpiInfo VI and interviews data were organized using Atlas-ti 5.0.66. Participants identified the risk factors for geohelminth infection, but they do not associate soil contamination with helminths eggs or larvae with the risk to acquire the infection, instead of that they think the infection could be acquired by eating guava, because they think guava worm is alike a geohelminth. Participans identified as clinical signs bruxism, abdominal pain, diahrrea, and an illness called "rebote de lombrices" (sort of "worm riot") by people. Mothers use some traditional therapeutics like "paico" (Chenopodium ambrosioides), but they also use to visit the physician at least twice a year, to get medicine against geohelminths. This study shows that risk factors should not be considered solely in terms of individuals or disjointed of social determinants (sex, age, socioeconomic status), but within a societal context with a fundamental explanatory potential that allows understanding bio-cultural conditions where are installed and thrive these infections.

Keywords : knowledge; attitudes; practices; helminthiasis; school children.

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