Knowledge, attitude and practice in the prevention of kidney stones among Iranian urologists

Background: Renal calculus with increasing prevalence and incidence in recent decades have the highest burden of urologic diseases. While preventive measures could significantly reduce the rate of recurrence, the amount of compliance with the preventive guidelines is unclear among urologists. This study was designated to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practice in kidney stones prevention among urologists for the first time in Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on the participants of the 20th Iranian Urological Association Congress. The questionnaires included questions regarding demographics, educational and occupational information, knowledge, attitude, and practice of urologists in the field of kidney stones prevention. The questionnaires were designed according to the latest guideline of the European Association of Urology and previous studies. Scores related to the knowledge and practice were calculated based on the number of questions with correct answers. The response rate was also calculated. The correlation of knowledge and practice with background variables, including age, work experience, and time since graduation were assessed. Results: The total response rate was 18.08% (64 out of 354 distributed questionnaires). The mean age of the respondents was 47.25±10.20 and the mean work experience was 15.61±11.70 years. The mean knowledge and practice scores were 8.36±1.48 out of 11 and 4.44±1.45 out of 7 scores, respectively. A total of 96.2% and 73.4% of the urologists earned at least half of the knowledge and practice scores, respectively. There was no significant correlation between knowledge and practice scores (P=0.706). Work experience and time since graduation had a negative relationship with the knowledge scores (respectively, P=0.02 and P=0.026), and faculty membership had a positive correlation with the practice scores (P=0.022). Most respondents had an acceptable attitude regarding the effectiveness of stone prevention. Conclusion: Although the study participants had good knowledge, attitude, and practice pattern regarding urinary stone prevention, their performance score was less than their level of awareness. However, we could not generalize the results to other urologists due to the low response rate of the study.