ASSESSMENT OF KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES AND PRACTICE TOWARD DENGUE FEVER AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN MALAYSIA

Abstract

Introduction: Dengue fever is an acute febrile illness with a significant public health concern in tropical and subtropical countries. Population knowledge and practice play an essential role in the transmission and prevention of the disease. This study aims to evaluate the level of knowledge, attitudes, and practice regarding dengue fever among Malaysian university students. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in twenty-five randomly selected universities across Malaysia. A total of 1520 respondents were approached by simple random sampling method. A previously validated and published questionnaire was used with little modification. The associations between the level of knowledge, Attitudes, and practice with different risk factors were calculated statistically and the significant association was considered with a p-value <0.05. Results: The data were analysed and showed that most of the students (56.3%, 46.2%, and 43.3%) has a moderate level of knowledge, attitude, and practice respectively toward dengue infection among the respondents. The result shows a significant association between the level of practice and knowledge (p-value <0.001) as well as between the level of practice and attitudes (p-value <0.001). Conclusion: The significant association between the practice and knowledge along with attitudes indicates the more knowledge and attitudes lead to better practice. This study highlighted the important role of university students in dengue prevention-based programs. They should be exposed more to improve and transfer their knowledge and attitude to other community population to reduce the incidence of dengue not only in Malaysia but globally.

Keywords

• Dengue Fever,
• Malaysia,
• knowledge
• Attitude
• Practice