The Study of Factors Relative with the Medical Diagnosis of Leptospirosis

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Jagapong Ngernklan
Prapansak Chaveerach
Arinee Chatchawanchonteera

Abstract

Background and objectives : Leptospirosis is an infectious disease that can be transmitted from animals to humans. The disease has been considered as a major public health problem in Thailand. Accurate and rapid diagnosis is very important in the case of having a severe patient. Doctor need the basic information including the risk factors like behavior from the patient to evaluate the clinical signs and to distinguish the Leptospisosis from others diseases which showing similar symptoms. Then, the appropriate drugs and treatments will be promptly provided to the patients. Accordingly, the effective diagnosis tools for the Leptospirosis are needed especially in community hospitals and hospital health care service, where the Leptospirosis test kits are unavailable.

Methods : This investigation was performed as a Cohort Study design. Data were derived from the previous record of medical history, as well as from the interviews with the patients treated at Wangsaphung hospital, Loei province. The information were comprised as following, exposure and risks of getting Leptospirosis, clinical signs and laboratory result using the test kit, Leptocheck-WB. Consequently, the factors that contribute to the disease were analyzed the correlation with the evidence of Leptospirosis by using Pearson Chi-Square Test for differences significant when p<0.05.

Results : The results demonstrated that factors significantly associated with Leptospirosis diagnosis are people working in the flood, wet and marshy areas (p= 0.002), occupational sectors (p = 0.005), clinical sign showing headache (p = 0.040) and clinical laboratory positive results (p= 0.000).

Conclusion : Base on only clinical features of patients is less accurate in determining Leptospirosis disease. Accordingly, risk behaviors associated with exposure to pathogens such as occupation and place of employment should be seriously concerned with the clinical signs, headache, high fever, and muscle aches. If the patients have experiences working in the wet and marshy place, doctor can suspect that the patients getting the disease and give the patient primary treatment and drugs. To confirm the Leptospirosis, the positive results from laboratory test will be a significant tool.

Keywords: Leptospirosis, Laboratory test, Clinical signs, behaviors and risks

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How to Cite
1.
Ngernklan J, Chaveerach P, Chatchawanchonteera A. The Study of Factors Relative with the Medical Diagnosis of Leptospirosis. SRIMEDJ [Internet]. 2013 Nov. 1 [cited 2024 Mar. 29];26(4):296-301. Available from: https://li01.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/SRIMEDJ/article/view/12976
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