KNOWLEDGE IN THE PREVENTION OF LYME BORRELIOSIS AND EXPOSURE TO TICKS IN WOMEN AND MEN STUDYING NON-MEDICAL COURSES IN LATVIA

Background. The aim of the following study was to assess the level of knowledge in the

prevention of Lyme borreliosis and exposure to ticks in non-medical students, broken down

by gender.


Material and methods. The study group comprised 274 students from Latvia, including

229 women and 45 men aged 18-35. As for the research tool, the authors’ own questionnaire

survey was used.


Results. Latvian male students are more likely to use repellents and more often examine

their bodies on return from green areas (86.6% and 97.8% respectively) than women (66.3%

and 93.9%, respectively). The biggest group of the respondents (35.6% of the men and 41.1%

of the women) considered that twisting the tick out with tweezers was the correct method

of removing ticks. Slightly fewer respondents, i.e. 26.6% of the men and 36.2% of the women,

opted for tweezing it out with a swift steady movement. In practice, most people do not do

this on their own − 28.9% of the men turn to a doctor / nurse for help and 32.3% of the women

to some other person. Students critically assess their knowledge regarding Lyme borreliosis:

60% of the men evaluate it as minimal and 53.1% of the women as average. More than 86% of

the men and 73.4% of the women in the study group reported being bitten by a tick.


Conclusions: The results of the study reflect the attitudes of Latvian academic youth towards

Lyme borreliosis as well as knowledge about the disease and its prevention, which allows for

assessing the need for intensifying public education in the subject.