CLINICAL PROFILE & KNOWLEDGE OF SCRUB TYPHUS AMONG PATIENTS ATTENDING THE TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL – AN ANALYTICAL STUDY

Introduction: India is a tropical country with a high burden of febrile zoonotic/infectious illnesses, scrub typhus being such a cause with multiple epidemics reported from different regions of the country. Scrub typhus is the commonest of the rickettsial diseases in India and is difficult to diagnose. Pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) are frequent complications. Objectives:  1. To assess signs and symptoms occurring in scrub typhus among patients attending the hospital. 2. To estimate the knowledge of scrub typhus among patients. Material & methods: The study was conducted by Department of Microbiology at PMCH Udaipur from January 2024 to March 2024 and screened for scrub typhus were selected as the study sample. The sample size was calculated as 227 using the Daniel’s formula. A self-administered semi-structured questionnaire was predesigned and pretested Questionnaire to collect data regarding scrub typhus, which was prepared in English and Hindi for data collection. Statistical packages of social sciences (IBM software, version 27) were used to compare the continuous variables between the two groups. P<0.05 will be considered as statistically significant. Results: The findings of the study revealed that 13.65% of patients were positive for scrub typhus. The most common symptoms among patients were fever (100%), headache (54.18%), nausea/vomiting (23.78%). Out of 227 patients, only 66 (29.07%) had heard about scrub typhus. Among 66 patients, On item wise knowledge, more than half of the patients knew that scrub typhus as infectious disease (50%), transmitted through the bite of mites (59.09%) However, only 16.66% knew that scrub typhus rapidly spread in the rainy season. Occupation is the factor that is significantly associated with scrub typhus at 95% CI, (χ² = 6.667, p = 0.009) at 5% Los. Conclusion: Our results highlight that scrub typhus infection is an important cause of AFI, and patients must be routinely screened for the proper diagnosis and timely treatment. Moreover, very few had heard about scrub typhus and its preventive measures, so awareness program on scrub typhus is needed for the risk groups to enhance their knowledge.