Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Reasons for performing this study:
Colic has for a long time been seen as a serious health problem in the equine population. Even so, the knowledge of colic seems to differ a great deal among the people interacting with horses. A large number of studies have for several years looked at risk factors that cause colic, in order to provide knowledge about them. The knowledge can then be used as tools for developing prophylactic methods in order to reduce the number of horses that develop colic.

Objectives
The aim with this study was to investigate if people have the correct knowledge about colic in horses, which risk factors that cause colic today and describe prophylactic methods that can result in avoidance of colic in horses.

Method
Eleven veterinary practices were contacted in order to send out two questionnaires for a study of six weeks. The first visitor questionnaire was developed for the clinics daily visitors and the second staff(colic)questionnaire had two parts and was developed for the working staff at the clinic. Part one in the staff(colic)questionnaire was supposed to be filled out for every horse with colic symptoms that the clinics treated and part two contained questions about the clinics general opinions regarding colic. Part two was only filled out once, after the study period ended. A total of 154 visitor questionnaires, 48 staff(colic)questionnaires part one and eight staff(colic)questionnaires part two was received from eight clinics. As a complement, contact was also taken with five insurance companies to get their opinion regarding the number of colic cases registered. Four out of five insurance companies participated.

Results
The main objective was to find out what kind of knowledge the participators had about colic. Of 154 answers 77,3 % believed that colic was a symptom, while 14,3 % believed that colic was a disease. The remaining 8,4 % answered both or didn’t answer at all. The risk factor that caused most colic cases was, according to 48 staff(colic)questionnaires part one, “unknown” with 83,3 %. According to 58 visitor questionnaires, “other” was the risk factor that caused colic in the most cases with 24,1 %. Of 154 participating visitors, 66,9 % had a horse or have had a horse that developed colic. Of 100 answers, only 63 % got prophylactic information about how to avoid colic in the future, which means that 37 % didn’t get any useful information about how to avoid future colic at all.

Conclusion
The risk factors that was found in this study have similar results with other studies. The results regarding knowledge was as expected in years of experience, when the knowledge was correlating with number of years, but was surprising in activity, when trainer was the category whit the lowest knowledge regarding colic as symptom. In order to prevent and reduce colic, animal health personnel have an important role in teaching and spreading the necessary knowledge so the animal care can be improved and even contribute to a better health and welfare in our horse population.