Comparative Study of Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices of Hair Care among the Final Year MBBS Students versus Final Year Engineering Students

摘要

Maintenance of hair isa daily routinefor many,and it iscommon to see peopleinvesting a hugeamount oftimeand money on haircare which hasled to a hugeindustry producing and selling a multitude of haircare products to fulfillthese demands. Indiatoo is undergoing a hair revolutionwithmarkets flooded with products promising instant beautification of hair. The practice of haircareisessentially based on the knowledgeandattributes regarding the hair structureand physiology of hair. Student knowledge,attitude,and practices (KAP) study is important becausethey aresusceptibleto health education and change of behavior.[3] In theabsence ofKAP study regarding haircare, we decided to undertakesuch studyby taking final year medicalstudentsascohortand compared these data with theircounterparts, i.e. final yearengineering students, so as to assesstheimpact of hair-related knowledge during undergraduate medicaltraining. In thiscross-sectionalstudy,a detailed questionnaire which includedvarious open-ended, semi-open-ended,and close-ended questionscovering variousaspects of haircare was prepared and validated by fivedermatologists, regarding haircare KAP. After theinstitutionalethicscommitteeclearance, this questionnaire wasadministered to students of onebatch offinal year medicaland final yearengineering studentsand collected back on thesame day. The data wereanalyzed. AKAP scoreforeachKAP variable was defined as percentage ofrespondents who gaveappropriateresponse. Responsein both the groups wascompared andanalyzed statistically byChi-squaretest/Fisherexact test. IBMSPSS Statistics for Windows, version 24 (IBMCorp., Armonk, N.Y., USA) wasused for thestatisticalanalysis.