Comparison of Mean Knowledge on Age, Location and Education Level towards Dengue Fever Prevention

Abstract

The World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) recommends extensive community educational campaigns that emphasize reducing vector breeding sites as an effective way of dengue prevention. Several studies suggest that better knowledge of dengue and dengue vector prevention practices among people was one of the predictors of better practices of dengue prevention. The purpose of this study was to find the comparison of mean knowledge on age, location and education level towards dengue fever prevention. The study design was a cross sectional study with concerning the knowledge, attitude and practices of the dengue fever prevention among the people in Perak Tengah district, Perak. ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) was engaged in this study to find the difference on mean knowledge between education, age and location. We found that all variables (age, location and education) were statistically significant difference on mean knowledge since the p-value was less than 0.05. For age, the mean knowledge shows that there were significant difference on age 41 until 50 years old and age below 20 years old using post-hoc test Bonferroni’s procedures. Other than that, for mean knowledge there was statistically significant difference on variable location [F-statistic (df): 6.643 (5,194)] with the p-value less than 0.001. Finally, there were statistically significant difference on mean knowledge between education levels [F-statistic (df): 3.677 (6,193)] with the p-value equal to 0.002. As a conclusion strengthening the public health measures at local place would protect the people as well as providing them an adequate knowledge about infectious disease control and develop the correct behaviour on health and prevention of disease.

Keywords: Knowledge, Dengue, Aedes, Prevention

Ethical Approval – Ethical approval was obtained from UiTM Research Ethics Committee, Ref. No. (600-RMI(5/1/6/01))