Social Stigma and Health Beliefs about Tuberculosis a Research from Rural Regions of Iran

The aim of this study was to determine the tuberculosis (TB)-related social stigma and health beliefs among residents of Gorgan’s rural areas, North of Iran. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional research, 672 individuals in Golestan were enrolled. The target group included non-TB individuals aged 15 years and above with no TB patients in their families at the time of study. They were selected by two‑stage cluster sampling. The data collection tool was a researcher‑made questionnaire consisting of 2 sections. The first section included demographic information. The second section was related to the questions of perceived susceptibility (n = 5), perceived severity (n = 7), and social stigma (n = 11) measures. Data analysis was carried out using SPSS version 16. Findings: The mean age of respondents was 33.00 ± 1.17 years. In this study, only 5.6% of the individuals had high perceived susceptibility. 97.7% of the samples had a moderate and high level of severity. This percent is 91.5% for social stigma. Pearson correlation test showed a direct relationship between perceived severity and social stigma (r = 0.30) and an inverse relationship between perceived susceptibility and perceived severity (r = −0.13). Conclusion: Based on the findings of the present study, levels of perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, and social stigma among people were moderate. Therefore, intervention studies should focus on initiating health education and health promotion programs in order to increase perceived susceptibility and decrease social stigma.