Awareness on Rheumatic Heart Disease Among IT-Professionals
Author(s): Kaushik Vishnu Rajkumar, Vishnu Priya V* and Gayathri R
Abstract
Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) is a serious disease of the heart involving damage to one or more of the four small heart valves. The valve damage remains after an illness called acute rheumatic fever (ARF). During ARF the heart valve tissue, and sometimes other parts of the heart (the heart lining or muscle) can become swollen, and this is called carditis. Following carditis, the heart valves can remain damaged then become scarred, and the result is an interruption to normal blood flow through the damaged valves The heart valve damage may start shortly after untreated or under-treated streptococcal infection such as strep throat or scarlet fever. If left untreated, rheumatic heart disease can lead to heart valve damage, stroke, heart failure, and death. The aim of the study was to create awareness on RHD among IT professionals. An online based questionnaire, which includes 10 questions, was distributed to all the participants. The population consisted of 138 participants of a selected population of IT professionals. A majority of 59.4% were aware of the rheumatic heart diseases. and a minority of 40.6% were unaware. From the obtained results, we may conclude that the majority of IT professionals are aware of RHD. Health education camps, seminars may be conducted to create awareness on the risk factors, pathogenesis, diagnosis, and treatment modality of RHD.