Abstract
BackgroundSeveral studies have reported a significant association of knowledge, attitude and preventive practice (KAP) regarding dengue infection among community’s resident in endemic areas. In this study we aimed to assess and develop a reliable and valid KAP survey on the subject of dengue that is suitable for the resident population of Sabah, Malaysia.MethodsA community-based cross-sectional study was conducted from October 2019 to February 2020 involving 468 respondents. Information on the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants (six items), their KAP (44, 15 and 18 items on knowledge, attitude and practice, respectively) and treatment-seeking behaviour (five items) towards dengue was collected using a structured questionnaire. Data analysis was performed using SPSS and R software in the R Studio environment. The knowledge section was analysed by two-parameter logistic item response theory (2-PL IRT) using ltm package. The construct validity and reliability of items for sections on attitude, practice and treatment-seeking behaviour were analysed using psy package.ResultsFor the knowledge section, only 70.5% (31/44) of items were within or close to the parameter acceptable range of −3 to + 3 of difficulty. In terms of discrimination, 65.9% (29/44) of items were within or close to the acceptable range of 0.35 to 2.5, and 24 items (54.5%) failed to fit the 2-PL IRT model (P < 0.05) after assessing by goodness-of-fit analysis. Only eight items were reliable and retained in the attitude section with a Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) test value of > 0.7, while based on the communalities, 11 items in the attitude section were excluded due to very low h2, factor loading values and low correlation with the total (< 0.5). The practice section was found suitable for factor analysis because the KMO value was > 0.7. The communalities of the practice section showed that seven items had low h2 values (< 0.3), which were therefore excluded from further analysis, and only 11 items were retained.ConclusionsThe KAP items retained in the final version of the survey were reliable and valid to be use as a questionnaire reference when conducting future similar studies among the population of Sabah.
Highlights
Several studies have reported a significant association of knowledge, attitude and preventive practice (KAP) regarding dengue infection among community’s resident in endemic areas
The communalities of the practice section showed that seven items had low h2 values (< 0.3), which were excluded from further analysis, and only 11 items were retained
The KAP items retained in the final version of the survey were reliable and valid to be use as a question‐ naire reference when conducting future similar studies among the population of Sabah
Summary
Several studies have reported a significant association of knowledge, attitude and preventive practice (KAP) regarding dengue infection among community’s resident in endemic areas. A mosquito-borne viral disease of humans, is becoming a major global public health concern and socioeconomic burden, especially in tropical and subtropical countries because of the increasingly high incidence of infection [1]. This includes the Southeast Asian nation of Malaysia that occupies parts of the Malay Peninsula and the island of Borneo. In this country of 32 million people there has been a recent steep rise in the number of dengue cases reported annually, from 46,171 in 2010 to 83,849 in 2017 [2, 3]. Patterns of dengue transmission in Sabah are associated with a rapid rate of urbanization in close proximity to disturbed forest environments, thereby providing a risk of spill-over of sylvatic pathogens to human populations [6]
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