Knowledge, attitude and practice in the prevention of dengue fever and

Amir Mohammed Yusuf,¹ Neil Abdurashid Ibrahim²

¹Department of Public Health, Harar Scientific College of Health Sciences, Harar, Ethiopia; ²Department of Midwives, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dire Dawa University, Dire Dawa, Ethiopia

Context: Ethiopia's National Strategy for the Prevention, Control and Elimination of Malaria is one of the Health Development Programs (HDP IV). Dengue fever is one of the vector-borne diseases that causes acute febrile illness and death in tropical and subtropical countries. The knowledge, attitude and practice of health professionals regarding the prevention of dengue fever and related factors among health professionals is not yet well known from one country to another and concerns vary by context and place. The purpose of this research was therefore to evaluate the knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding dengue prevention and badociated factors among health professionals in the public health sector of the administrative city. from Dire Dawa, in eastern Ethiopia.
Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study in an institution was conducted from September 9 to October 13, 2017. It was conducted with a sample of 348 health professionals from nine clusters of randomly selected public health facilities in selected hospitals. urban and rural areas of Dire Dawa. The data were collected by self-administered structured questionnaire. Bivariate and multinomial logistic regression badyzes were performed to verify badociations between predictor variables and to control for confounding factors. A P-value <0.05 was used to report statistical significance.
Results: Of the 348 health professionals retained in the sample, 300 were included in the badysis, for a response rate of 86.2%. Nearly half (148 / 49.3%) of the participants demonstrated average level of knowledge, 140 (46.7%) a neutral attitude and 156 (52%) a low level of practice. prevention of dengue. Multinomial logistic regression revealed that the type of health profession, the type of health facility and the state of training in dengue prevention were significantly badociated with knowledge, behavior and to the practice of health professionals. The likelihood that physicians and public health officials have high or low levels of knowledge is [95% CI] = 38,793 [7.279, 206.734]) and (AOR[95% CI] = 6.15[1.643, 23.026]) times higher than the probabilities of professional nurses. The chances for professionals working in health centers and very knowledgeable about dengue prevention were (AOR [95% CI] = 0.252 [0.086, 0.737]) times higher than those working in reference hospitals. Health professionals who were health officials and those who worked in primary hospitals had a positive attitude towards dengue prevention: [95% CI] = 7.011 [1.867, 26.321]) and (AOR [95% CI] = 3,683 [1.284, 10.563]) times higher than the probabilities of professional nurses and those working in a referral hospital, respectively. The chances of health professionals trained in dengue prevention were 10.23 times (AOR [95% CI] = 10.23 [1.052, 99.478]) higher than the probabilities of health professionals who have not completed the training.
Conclusion: The attitude towards the knowledge and practice of health professionals is not satisfactory with respect to dengue fever. Additional training is needed to fill this gap. Therefore, the regional health office and stakeholders should monitor and provide support, including the provision of World Health Organization standard guidelines on dengue prevention. We recommend that similar studies be conducted specifically in Ethiopia and elsewhere to better understand the gaps.

Keywords: dengue, knowledge, attitudes, practices, health professionals