Scabies Knowledge Among Undergraduate Nursing Students in China: A Questionnaire Survey

PURPOSE: Scabies is a common, neglected, and a major health concern skin disease in the world. Improper care may produce a series of complications and even lead to the spread of diseases. Nursing students, as future health-care workers, are vital to the prevention and care of diseases. However, to date, few studies have focused on the basis of their disease cognition for scabies. This study aims to evaluate the level of undergraduate nursing students’ awareness of scabies disease. METHODS: A questionnaire survey was conducted among all undergraduate nursing students in Xi’an FanYi University, Xian, Shaanxi Province, China. RESULTS: All the 132 undergraduate nursing students completed the questionnaire. The true ignorance rate of scabies in this survey was 82.6%. However, among the 56 students (42.4% of total) who thought they knew about the disease. Only 23 students (17.4% of the samples) had 75% or more satisfactory knowledge. Fewer students claimed that they had read about the itchy-mite-disease in books (N = 20, 15.2%). Compared with college textbooks (P-value < 0.05) and medical books (P-value < 0.05), other books (medical journals) provide more information about scabies. Nearly half of the students did not know that the scabies can be contagious. All students expressed their willingness to learn about scabies knowledge and participate in the diagnosis and treatment of scabies (100%). CONCLUSION: This study shows that undergraduate nursing students have a poor level of knowledge about scabies. There is an urgent need to improve nursing students’ awareness of scabies and increase their knowledge base, so as to strengthen the standardized nursing of scabies and reduce the prevalence of scabies.