Vaiyapuri Sakthivel, Kadam Priyanka, Chandrasekharuni Gnaneswar, Oliveira Isadora S, Senthilkumaran Subramanian, Salim Anika, Patel Ketan, de Almeida Gonçalves Sachett Jacqueline, Pucca Manuela B
School of Pharmacy, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6UB, UK.
Snakebite Healing & Education Society, Mumbai, India.
Toxicon X. 2022 Dec 26;17:100147. doi: 10.1016/j.toxcx.2022.100147. eCollection 2023 Mar.
Snakebite envenoming (SBE) predominantly affects rural impoverished communities that have limited access to immediate healthcare. These communities often hold numerous myths/misbeliefs about snakes and SBE. Moreover, healthcare professionals who practice in rural regions often work in unstable situations with limited medical infrastructure and therefore, lack sufficient knowledge/experience and confidence in the clinical management of SBE. Due to the lack of reliable statistics on the true burden of SBE, developing health policies for this condition by relevant authorities may be difficult. Hence, it is critical to improve awareness about SBE among rural communities, healthcare professionals and health authorities using robust multifaceted community health education approaches. Here, we describe the design, development, implementation, and impact of distinctive community health education approaches that we used in India and Brazil. A wide range of educational tools including information leaflets, posters, pocket guides, learning materials for healthcare professionals and short/long video documentaries were developed in local languages and used to engage with target communities through direct assemblies as well as mass/traditional and social media. Notably, we used diverse methods to determine the impact of our programs in improving awareness, treatment-seeking behaviour, and clinical practice. The people-centred approaches that we used were inclusive and highly impactful in instigating fundamental changes in the management of SBE among rural communities. The resources and approaches presented in this article can be easily adapted for wider use in other countries in order to collectively reduce SBE-induced deaths, disabilities and socioeconomic ramifications.
蛇咬伤中毒（SBE）主要影响那些难以获得即时医疗服务的农村贫困社区。这些社区对蛇和蛇咬伤中毒往往持有众多的误解/错误观念。此外，在农村地区执业的医护人员通常工作环境不稳定，医疗基础设施有限，因此，他们在蛇咬伤中毒的临床管理方面缺乏足够的知识/经验和信心。由于缺乏关于蛇咬伤中毒真实负担的可靠统计数据，相关当局制定针对这种情况的卫生政策可能会很困难。因此，使用强有力的多方面社区健康教育方法来提高农村社区、医护人员和卫生当局对蛇咬伤中毒的认识至关重要。在此，我们描述了我们在印度和巴西使用的独特社区健康教育方法的设计、开发、实施及影响。我们用当地语言制作了包括信息传单、海报、袖珍指南、医护人员学习材料以及短/长视频纪录片在内的一系列广泛的教育工具，并通过直接集会以及大众/传统和社交媒体与目标社区进行互动。值得注意的是，我们使用了多种方法来确定我们的项目在提高认识、寻求治疗行为和临床实践方面的影响。我们采用的以人为本的方法具有包容性，并且在促使农村社区蛇咬伤中毒管理发生根本性变化方面具有高度影响力。本文介绍的资源和方法可以很容易地进行调整，以便在其他国家更广泛地使用，从而共同减少蛇咬伤中毒导致的死亡、残疾和社会经济影响。
