Conocimiento de los costarricenses sobre parasitosis en la población infantil.

Objective: parasites are organisms that live inside or on another species for their own benefit, managing to affect plants, animals, and humans. Children are more vulnerable to infection, but the incidence has decreased thanks to the improvement in Costa Rican sanitation. The aim was to evaluate the general knowledge that the Costa Rican population has regarding childhood parasitosis. Methodology: an observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out on a sample of 196 subjects. A survey was conducted among Costa Ricans over 18 years of age who had a device with internet access. The participants were asked about their knowledge on the clinical picture of childhood parasitosis in Costa Rica. Results: most of the participants were college students (68.3%). 89.9% of them believe that pet parasites can infect humans. The best-known parasites were lice, marked by 173 (88.3%) people. The stomach is the part of the body considered most affected, with 148 (75.5%) responses. The main known preventive measure is washing hands with soap and water, answered by 133 participants (67.9%). Conclusion: Many participants believe that humans can be infected by the same parasites as animals. Lice were the best known and ticks the least. Most of the people consider vomiting and/or diarrhea as one of the main symptoms and believe that the stomach is the most affected part during the infection. In addition, they consider that the main preventive measure to avoid contagion is hand washing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]