Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatic Heart Disease: A Physicians Perspective

Background: Acute rheumatic fever (ARF) and rheumatic heart disease (RHD) are non-suppurative cardiovascular sequlae of group A Streptococcus pharyngitis affecting children and young adults. Despite concerted efforts aimed at prevention, they still remain diseases of public health concern globally. Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge and practice of acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease among physicians practicing in public and private hospitals in two states of the Niger delta region of Nigeria. Materials and Methods: Using a structured self administered questionnaire with 9 questions, 123 physicians from all the medical and surgical specialties were interviewed. Data was analyzed using SPSS 20. Results: Majority (95.93%) of the doctors were working in Government hospitals and nearly half (49.59%) of them were Paediatricians. Over half (50.41%) had more than 5 years’ experience in medical practice. Among the cadre of the doctors, house officers represented 44.72% while Consultants constituted 17.07% of the study participants. The study showed that 70 (56.91%) of the study participants selected at least seven correct answers out of the nine questions that assessed their knowledge and practice and so showed a good knowledge and practice of ARF and RHD. Conclusion: Though a good level of knowledge and practice was gotten from our study, there are still some gaps in the knowledge and practice that can be improved by health education through training and retraining our healthcare professionals. We therefore recommend the inclusion of ARF and RHD in CME and other training programs.

Download Full-text

Environmental Factors Related to Acute Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatic Heart Disease in Aceh Province

Budapest International Research in Exact Sciences (BirEx) Journal ◽

10.33258/birex.v2i2.1004 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 248-256

Author(s):

Herlina Dimiati ◽

Sofia Sofia ◽

Gani B

Keyword(s):

Heart Disease ◽

Rheumatic Fever ◽

Rheumatic Heart Disease ◽

Acute Rheumatic Fever ◽

Group A Streptococcus ◽

Laboratory Diagnosis ◽

Chi Square ◽

Protein Assay ◽

Complete Blood Counts ◽

Rheumatic Heart

Acute rheumatic fever (ARF) is the body’s immune system reacting to an untreated infection with Group A Streptococcus (GAS) that affects skin, joints, brain, and heart. The heart damage that remains after an occurrence of ARF is called rheumatic heart disease (RHD). The objective of this study was to evaluate the ARF and RHD based on the profile of clinical diagnoses and emerging factors. The data were collected through interviews of the subjects, complete blood counts, the anti-streptolysin titer O analysis, the C-reactive protein Assay, and a statistical analysis. This research was a combination of clinical assessments, the CRP kit, anti-titer O kit, and interviews. The data were analyzed by employing Wilcoxon, Chi-square and Friedman test and also included a correlation analyzed using Spearman’s correlation with significance of (p<0.05. There were 63 samples of ARF and RHD patients involved, consisting of male (50.8%:32) and female (49.9%:31) patients (p<0.05). The factors that triggered ARF and RHD (p<0.05; r=0.88) as well as laboratory diagnosis (p<0.05) of these infections were measured. The ARF caused by residence also caused RHD by the interaction of time with the environment (p<0.05). The population consisted of males (32:50.8%) and females (31:49.2%), and it was not significant (p>0.05), while the streptococcal infection of RHD (63.5%) was much larger than in ARF (36.5%). This was based on the clinical diagnosis of RHD and ARF with a significance of (p<0.05). Also, the residence and the period of interaction with the environment were influences on the RHD and ARF.

Download Full-text