Study of knowledge level and attitude of the female high school students about cholera in Qom, 2009

cholera is an intestinal acute infection caused by Vibriocholera O1 -and had different epidemics in Iran. Since Qom is a religious and touristiccity. and thousands of tourists and travelers visit this city from all around the worldand Iran. It is an endemic place for cholera، the investigation of knowledge level andpeoples› attitude type about this disease and knowing about ways of transferring thisdisease among people especially among the young can help prevent the spread of thisdisease. Therefore، this study tries to determine the degree of high school students›knowledge as one of the active social groups about cholera in Qom، 2010. in a cross sectional descriptive study، 388 student wererandomly selected among the student population of different high schools in Qomand they were asked to fill a questionnaire composed of 20 items. The rate (degree) of their knowledge was measured based on the number of the correct answers and itwas ranked using a scale having four ranks as follows: 0-6 inadequate information،6. 5- 12. 5 low knowledge، 13-19 average knowledge، >19 high knowledge. The datawere analyzed through SPSS software and chi square and ANOVA tests. 47% of the students were in the first، 31. 4% in second، and 21. 6% in the thirdgrade of high school، among these، 1. 3% had inadequate knowledge about cholera،27% low knowledge، 65. 5% average knowledge and 6. 2% had high knowledge aboutthe disease. There was significant relationship