The status of women's perceptions and behavior of the decontaminated vegetables in the city of Qom in 1390; a study based on the Health Belief Mode

Although vegetables have important role to our diets but in case of infection with microbes they can act as a source of infection for variety of intestinal diseases namely cholera. Present study aimed to figure out the status of vegetable disinfection behavior and its modifiable determinants during cholera outbreak in Qom province in 2011. In a descriptive-analytic study on 554 women (who were household-keeper), vegetable disinfection behavior and its determinants were investigated. In this study, the multistage sampling method was used. A researcher-tailored questionnaire was used to gather data. The valid and reliable questionnaire was comprised of 85 questions and was completed by subjects. Then, the collected data was analyzed by SPSS software (version 19) and using Pearson correlation coefficient (CI=95%). The mean and standard error (SE) of age of subjects were about 31.24+-8.45 Women’s knowledge score on use of vegetable disinfectants had a mean and SE of 71.5+-11.65. Altogether, only 15.99% of women (87 persons) reported a complete disinfection of vegetables. The strongest relationship was found between Vegetable disinfection behavior and the perceived barriers that based on Pearson correlation coefficient was a significant but reverse relationship. (r=-0.567, p=0.019). Our findings showed that house-keeping women had a poor behavior regarding vegetable disinfection. Consequently, poorly-disinfected vegetables are still a prominent health problem respecting spread of intestinal diseases especially cholera.