Impacts of an educational program on rural women's knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF)

Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is an important zoonotic disease that can cause severe complications in human, especially among residents of rural areas. In this experimental study, 80 rural women were selected in Iran, by multi-stage cluster sampling method and randomly assigned into two intervention (n = 40) and control (n = 40) groups. A CCHF prevention education program was developed and implemented for the intervention group. Data were collected in both pretest and posttest groups (3 months after intervention), using a researcher-made questionnaire to measure knowledge, attitudes and practices effective in the prevention of CCHF. The data were analyzed in SPSS-27 software test at a significance level of 0.05. The mean age of participants was 32.5 +/- 7.76 year. Based on the pretest results, the average knowledge (P = .001) and attitude (P = .001) in the control group was significantly higher than those of the intervention group, but the difference was not significant for the practice (P = .210). After 3 months of follow-up, the mean of knowledge, attitude and practice in the intervention group increased significantly, compared to that of the control group (P = .001). Educational interventions can improve the rural women's preventive behaviors toward CCHF. It is suggested to design and implement similar extensive educational interventions to empower rural women's first, and then whole society.