evaluation OF KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE, PRACTICE ABOUT DENGUE HEMORRHAGIC FEVER PREVENTION AND CONTROL AT 6 SENTINEL provinces IN SOUTH OF VIETNAM, 1998

 

Nguyen Kim Tien, Huynh Thu Thuy, Luong Chan Quang

Pasteur Institute HoChiMinh City

 

A survey on knowledge, attitude, practice was carried out at 6 sentinel provinces in South of VN (Ca Mau, Kien Giang, Can Tho, HoChiMinh City, Dong Nai, An Giang) in  order to plan an appropriate health education program for community about Aedes aegypti vector prevention and control. One district was selected in each province. The sample sizes were 2000 with the method of 30 cluster-randomized sampling. The subjects to be interviewed were house owners.

The results found that:

-         About a half of subjects were primary education (48%, 13-74%).

-         Their main occupations were farmer (55%, 13-80%).

-         85%-95% of subjects have heard about dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF).

-         The major sources of DHF information were television (43-81%), radio (8-30%), health workers (11-29%) or the neighbors of DHF cases (9-33%).

-         The first health facilities for seeking DHF treatment were commune health centers (36-60%), private health sectors (12-43%) with subjects living in country side but subjects living in urban commonly came to provincial hospitals directly.

-         High continuous fever for more than 2 days was suspected DHF by most of subjects (64-76%), but few subjects could identify characteristic of shock (<10%)

-         64-90% of subjects knew that dengue virus was transmitted by the bite of a mosquito.

-         Most of people knew that larva lived in water containers without cover (46-78%).

-         The methods that subjects selected for mosquito and larva control were as following: mosquito coil (52-63%);  mosquito net with Permethrine (6-34%); spraying (10-34%); covered water containers (25-50%); removal of rubbish (9-24%); larva eating fish (2-23%);  weekly water containers cleaning (14-44%).

Health education program should be emphasized on the community participation for the breading resource reduction 24 of the mosquito, not on chemical spraying method.