Assessment of Knowledge, Attitude, and Preventive Practices Towards Dengue Fever Among the Community in Qardho District
Abstract
Dengue fever is caused by a virus belonging to the Flaviviridae family, which is spread by Aedes eypti mosquitoes and is the most rapidly spreading mosquito-borne viral disease in the world. The objectives of this study were to assess knowledge, attitude, and preventive practices towards dengue fever among the community in the Qardho district. A descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted by using a structured questionnaire. A sample size of 384 participants was selected, and face-to-face interviews through structured questionnaires were done between August and November 2023. Although 77.2% of the respondents had heard about dengue fever, the study found that Qardho residents had poor knowledge of the disease. Only 27.6% of the respondents recognised the agent causing dengue fever as a virus. About 40% of them thought that mosquitoes were responsible for the disease. Further, only 7% of them maintained that clean water and clean water holding containers might be breeding sites for mosquitoes. Taken together, 73.8% of the respondents had poor knowledge. Despite their poor knowledge, circa 52% of the participants had good attitudes towards dengue-suspected patients, and most of them (71.9%) took preventive measures against the disease. Most of the respondents (43.6%) used mosquito nets. This preventive practice might be due to their prior awareness that mosquitoes are vectors for another serious illness, malaria. Most of the residents in the Qardho district had poor knowledge about dengue fever, the agent causing the disease, its mode of transmission, breeding sites of the vector, treatment, and biting behaviour. The study suggests there is a need to increase health education activities, such as awareness campaigns and mass media, to enhance knowledge about dengue fever. Also, community awareness of vector control plays an important role in disease prevention and control
Downloads
References
Ahmed, Y. M., & Salah, A. A. (2016). Epidemiology of Dengue Fever in Ethiopian Somali Region: Retrospective Health Facility Based Study. Central African Journal of Public Health, 2(2), 51–56. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.cajph.20160202.12
Al-zurfi, B. M. N., Fuad, M. D. F., Abdelqader, M. A., Baobaid, M. F., Ghazi, H. F., Ibrahim, M. H., Abdullah, M. R., & Unit, C. M. (2015). Original article Knowledge, attitude and Practice of dengue fever and health education program among students of Alam Shah Science. Malaysian Journal of Public Health Medicine, 15(2), 69–74.
Arora, P., Arora, M., Sharma, V., & Kotwal, A. (2017). Dengue: awareness, preventive practices, and water storage behaviour in an urban community of Delhi. International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health, 4(12), 4460. https://doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20175148
Baba, M., Villinger, J., & Masiga, D. K. (2016). Repetitive dengue outbreaks in East Africa: A proposed phased mitigation approach may reduce its impact. Reviews in Medical Virology, 26(3), 183–196. https://doi.org/10.1002/rmv.1877
Bosa, H. K., Montgomery, J. M., Kimuli, I., &Lutwama, J. J. (2014). Dengue fever outbreak in Mogadishu, Somalia 2011: Co-circulation of three dengue virus serotypes. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 21(September 2015), 3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2014.03.412
Boulos A.M. Botros, Douglas M. Watts, Atef K. Soliman, Adel W. Salib, Mahmoud I. Moussa, H. Mursal, C. Douglas, and M. F. (1989). serological evidence of dengue fever among refugees, Hargaysa, Somalia. Journal of Medical Virology, 119910(29), 79–82.
Caminade, C., Kovats, S., Rocklov, J., Tompkins, A. M., Morse, A. P., Colón-González, F. J., . . . Lloyd, S. J. (2014). Impact of climate change on global malaria distribution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(9), 3286-3
Centres for disease and prevention CDC. (2n.d.). Dengue and Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever Information for Health Care Practitioners. CDC governmenthttps://www.cdc.gov/dengue/resources/healthcarepract.pdf
Dawa, D., Yusuf, A. M., Ibrahim, N. A., & Yusuf, A. M. (2022). fever prevention and associated factors among public health sector healthcare professionals: in knowledge, attitude, and practice towards dengue fever prevention and associated factors among public health sector healthcare professionals: in Dire Dawa. Risk Management and Health Policy, 91–104. https://doi.org/10.2147/RMHP.S195214
Gaal, A. O., & Mohamed, M. H. (2022). Assessing the Knowledge, Awareness, and Preventive Particles of Dengue Fever in Beled Hawo District, Somalia. Journal of Communicable Diseases, 54(3), 48–57. https://doi.org/10.24321/0019.5138.202289
Getachew, D., Tekie, H., Gebre-Michael, T., Balkew, M., & Mesfin, A. (2015). Breeding sites of Aedes aegypti: Potential dengue vectors in dire Dawa, east Ethiopia. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Infectious Diseases, 2015, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/706276
Gunasekara, T., Velathanthiri, V., Weerasekara, M., Fernando, S., Peelawattage, M., Guruge, D., & Fernando, S. (2012). Knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding dengue fever in a suburban community in Sri Lanka. Galle Medical Journal, 17(1), 10. https://doi.org/10.4038/gmj.v17i1.4355
Harapan, H., Rajamoorthy, Y., Anwar, S. et al. Knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding dengue virus infection among inhabitants of Aceh, Indonesia: a cross-sectional study. BMC Infect Dis 18, 96 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-018-3006-z
Itrat, A., Khan, A., Javaid, S., Kamal, M., Khan, H., Javed, S., Khan, A. H., Sethi, M. I., & Jehan, I. (2008). Knowledge, Awareness, and Practices Regarding Dengue Fever among the Adult Population of Dengue Hit Cosmopolitan. PloS ONE, 3(7), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0002620
Jeelani, S., Sabesan, S., & Subramanian, S. (2015). Community knowledge, awareness, and preventive practices regarding dengue fever in Puducherry South India. ELSEVIER, 129(6), 790–796. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2015.02.026
Kazaura, M. (2020). Knowledge, attitude, and practices about dengue fever among adults living in Pwani Region, Tanzania in 2019. Africa Health Science, 20(4), 1601–1609.
Naing, C., Ren, W. Y., Man, C. Y., Fern, K. P., Qiqi, C., Ning, C. N., & Ee, C. W. S. (2011). Awareness of dengue and practice of dengue control among the semi-urban community: A cross-sectional survey. Journal of Community Health, 36(6), 1044–1049. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-011-9407-1
Naish, S., Dale, P., Mackenzie, J. S., McBride, J., Mengersen, K., & Tong, S. (2014). Climate change and dengue: A critical and systematic review of quantitative modeling approaches. BMC Infectious Diseases, 14(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2334-14-167
Nijhawan, D. M., Upadhye, A. J., & Upadhye, J. J. (2018). Knowledge, awareness, and practices regarding dengue fever. International Journal of Scientific Reports, 4(3), 49. https://doi.org/10.18203/issn.2454-2156.intjscirep20180506
Pourhoseingholi, M. A., Vahedi, M., & Rahimzadeh, M. (2013). Sample size calculation in medical studies. Gastroenterology and Hepatology from Bed to Bench, 6(1), 14–17.
Qadir, S., Ahmad, I., Akhtar, M. N., & Naeem, H. (2015). Knowledge, attitude, and practice about dengue fever among the local population. Gomal Journal of Medical Science, 13(2), 87–90.
Sharp, T. W., Wallace, M. R., Hayes, C. G., Sanchez, J. L., DeFraites, R. F., Arthur, R. R., Thornton, S. A., Batchelor, R. A., Rozmajzl, P. J., Hanson, R. K., Shuenn Jue Wu, Iriye, C., & Burans, J. P. (1995). Dengue fever in US troops during Operation Restore Hope, Somalia, 1992- 1993. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 53(1), 89–94. https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.1995.53.89
Shehu, I. K., Ahmad, H., Olayemi, I. K., Solomon, D., Ahmad, A. H., & Salim, H. (2022). Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice about Major Mosquito-Borne Diseases in Urban and Semi-urban Communities of Niger State, Nigeria. African Journal of Biomedical Research, 25(September). https://doi.org/10.4314/ajbr.v25i3.9
Syed, M., & Saleem, T. (2010). Knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding dengue fever among adults of high and low socioeconomic groups. Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association, 60(3), 243–247.
WHO, S. (2023). Health Emergency Programme Update – Somalia. Jan, 1–5. https://reliefweb.int/attachments/bc3d1897-6915-4165-88c8-ca4549e5b584/Health-Emergency-Programme-January-2023.pdf
WHO. (2021). Comprehensive guidelines for prevention and control of dengue and dengue haemorrhagic fever. In Epidemiology and Society Health Review (ESHR) (Vol. 2, Issue 2). https://doi.org/10.26555/eshr.v2i2.2245
World Health Organization. (2009). Dengue guidelines for
Diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and control. A joint publication
Of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR). WHO/HTM/NTD/DEN/2009.1. from http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2009/9789241547871_eng.pdf
Copyright (c) 2024 Ahmed Nur Hersi, Mohamud Shire Abdi
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
