Abstract

Background: H1N1 has become a major public health problem affecting young adults leading to morbidity and mortality, despite control measures has been there for more than 5 years. Objectives: To assess the level of awareness among adolescents of urban slum and rural area toward H1N1.
Materials and Methods: Community based cross-sectional study was conducted among adolescents in the age group of 13-19 years for 3 months in the urban slum and rural area, field practice areas of community medicine attached to a tertiary care hospital using predesigned and pretested pro forma.
Results: Knowledge regarding H1N1 among 400 adolescents was assessed. Out of which, 95.86% were aware that H1N1 is transmitted by coughing. 27% of them opined that smokers are at maximum risk of developing the disease and 63.5% told that fever will be the most common symptom and 24.5% opined that it can be diagnosed by throat and nasal samples. 65.72% opined that H1N1 can be prevented by wearing mask and 24.21% by following coughing etiquettes. 77.5% told that H1N1 is curable disease and 86.5% of them opined that they will take the patient to allopathic doctor for the treatment. However, a majority of them (79%) told that H1N1 patients should be confine to their house during the period of illness followed by 18% told that they should also be on dietary restrictions. Conclusion: Knowledge about acquiring and transmitting H1N1 was found to be adequate but it was accompanied with some misconceptions, it is thus imperative to dispel the myths and wrong notions about H1N1 from minds and replace it with correct knowledge. To achieve this, there is need to educate the adolescents, family members and community as a whole.