Causes of variability in prevalence rates of communicable diseases among school students in Pakistan

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study is to find out the causes of variability in prevalence rates of communicable diseases among school going students of Multan, in Pakistan.

Methodology: This case control trial was conducted in private and Govt. schools present in urban locality, Multan. This study was completed in 7 months (May 2016 to November 2016) and parents of all the students under trial were asked for informed consent. A total number of 100% (n=186) were taken in this study and online source Openepi.com was used for calculating sample size. All the students were selected by lottery method. Computer software SPSS version 23.2 was used for complete data entry and analysis. All the descriptive variables like onset of action and age were presented as SD and mean. Statistical test ANOVA was applied to find the significance among all groups. Chi square test was applied for analysis of continuous stats among groups. P value 0.05 was to be considered as significant.

Results: There were 100% (n=186) children, in this study. The mean age of the children was 7.79±1.55 years. (Range: 4 to 10years). There were 41.9% (n=78) children between 4-7 years and 58.1% (n=108) children between 8-10 years. There were 43.5% (n=81) males and 56.5% (n=105) females. There were 58.6% (n=109) children studied in government schools and 41.4% (n=77) studied in private schools. 44.6% (n=83) children belonged to urban areas and 55.4% (n=103) belonged to rural areas. Communicable diseases were noted, in the children, as TB 3.2% (n=6), diarrhea 32.3% (n=60), malaria 7% (n=13), flu 43% (n=80) and scabies 14.5% (n=27). Association was found between communicable disease with gender (p=0.049) and stratified age (p=0.000) except school type (p=0.915) and locality (p=0.221), according to chi-square.

Conclusion: The whole study reveals that the prevalence of diarrhea, TB, malaria, flu and scabies were higher in females comparative to male students. The communicable diseases prevalence was also higher in Govt. Schools than private sector.

Keywords: Variability, prevalence, correlation, communicable and school going.