Abstract

Background: Brucella is a type of bacteria that causes brucellosis which is a zoonotic disease. Studies in Saudi Arabia reported variation among incident reports and interventions suggesting increased awareness of the disease among medical professionals to decrease the prevalence rate. The current study aims to assess knowledge and practice among primary healthcare physicians on brucellosis. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted among primary healthcare physicians from June 2019 to August 2019 using a self-administrated questionnaire. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) program version 21. Number and percent were used for representing categorical variables, whereas mean and standard deviation (SD) were used for numerical variables. T-test was used to compare independent quantitative variables. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to find a positive and negative association. A p-value of ≤ 0.05 was considered as significant. Results: A total of 150 physicians were enrolled in the study, the mean age ± SD of the total subjects was found to be 36.2 ± 5.8. Among them, males represented more than half of the total subjects (60%), and Saudi nationals represented more than half of the physicians (66.6%). Furthermore, 55% of them had high knowledge about brucellosis, the level of knowledge was positively associated with years of experience
(p = 0.002, r = 0.6), whereas practice was associated positively with age (p = 0.01, r = 0.5) and years of
experience (p = 0.05, r = 0.2), respectively. Conclusion: The knowledge about brucellosis was found high among the low percent of physicians. The majority of physicians weren't well informed about it. The current study warrants awareness and training for physicians on brucellosis management and treatment.

Key words: Brucellosis, knowledge, practice, physicians.