Abstract

Objective: The allergic reactions may be severe and life threatening after an insect sting. It is important that insect sting reaction should be recognized, treated and the patient is referred to allergy clinic for investigation. We aimed to determine the knowledge of primary care physician capacity for insect sting and treatment.

Material and Methods: Two hundred and five voluntary primary care physicians working in Malatya and Samsun regions were included in the study.

Results: The median age was 38, median length of professional experience was 13 years and 124 (60.5%) of participant were male gender. Only 31.2 percent of participant stated that it should be given intra muscular adrenaline in case of severe systemic reaction (anaphylaxis) due to insect sting. Although 80 percent of participants knew referring the patient to allergy clinic who developed severe systemic reaction after insect sting, only 38 percent had knowledge about immunotherapy treatment which was given for venom allergy. 75.6 percent of participants were knowing the what the adrenaline auto injector, but stated knowledge of correct adrenaline auto injector use, dose and appropriate side for injection were 38.5%, 37% and 35.1%, respectively. There was no significant effect of primary care physicians’ age and length of professional experiences on the knowledge of insect sting allergy and auto injector usage skills.

Conclusions: The knowledge of primary care physician about treatment of insect sting allergy and adrenaline auto injector usage skills are insufficient. Therefore it should be useful to have training programs about these topics for primary care physician.

Key Words: Anaphylaxis; İnsect Sting Allergy; Auto İnjector.