Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Tuberculosis is one of the most common communicable diseases world wild and continues to be a major global health problem. It causes disease among millions of people each year, and, after HIV, it ranks as the second leading cause of death from an infectious disease worldwide. TB is a public health priority in Iraq. A report published by the World Health Organization highlighted ' the value of undergraduate tuberculosis training and outlined a systematic educational plan to ensure that students are provided with the necessary knowledge, skills, and attitudes essential to the effective management of tuberculosis.
AIM OF STUDY:
To assess the level of knowledge and attitude of medical students towards tuberculosis in the College of Medicine /University of Kufa and College of Medicine /University of Babylon in Iraq .
METHOD:
A cross-sectional study was done on medical students (4th ,5th,6th stages) at College of Medicine/ University of Kufa and College of Medicine / University of Babylon in Iraq during one year. Data was entered and statistical analysis conducted using statistical package for the social sciences version 20 (SPSS).Chi square test(X2-test) used for categorical variables. P value of 0.05 or less considered statistically significant.
RESULTS:
The overall knowledge of all students(84.5%) and overall attitude (76%).There was a significant difference between male and female in regarding attitudes questions, male percent of good attitudes was (79.9%) higher than female percent(73.8%). The percent of Babylon medical students of good knowledge was (86.7%) higher than percent of good knowledge of Kufa medical students (81.9%), but there was no significant difference between both colleges.
CONCLUSION:
The overall knowledge and attitudes were high in the present study .The percent of knowledge for Babylon medical students were higher than the percent of knowledge for Kufa medical students. There was a low percent of correct answers in some aspects regarding knowledge about epidemiology, chemoprophylaxis, transmission isolation of active disease patients and treatment of tuberculosis patients with human immunodeficiency virus.
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