EFFECTIVENESS OF DENGUE FEVER PREVENTION CAMPAIGNS

Abstract

Objectives: Dengue fever badly hits Pakistan in 2011. A large number of peopledied due to dengue fever. To control the alarming situation, other than treatment, work had beenstarted at all levels. Department of Social Welfare and Bait-ul-Maal, Punjab was involved by theCity District Government to work for the awareness among public for the preventive measuresand practices to reduce the spread of the epidemic. Anti-dengue awareness campaigns wereorganized at the community level with the help of non-government organizations. A survey wasconducted with the following objectives to evaluate the effectiveness of anti-dengue awarenessactivities: (1) Public knowledge of Dengue fever. (2) Anti-mosquito Preventive Practices.Study Design: A cross sectional household survey. Setting: Out of ten towns of Lahore city,Samanabad Town was selected. Period: Januarys to March 2014. Methods and Material:Instrument: A structured interview schedule of three sections was designed. Interviews wereconducted from urban/semi-urban communities. Sampling: By using multistage randomsampling, Out of ten towns of Lahore city, Samanabad Town was selected. Samanabad Town isconsisted of 24 union councils with a population of 17 million. Three union councils: 86, 104 and112 were randomly selected. 400 household were randomly selected from these union councilsfor interview to ensure representativeness of the sample. Respondents: Males/Females aged15–65 & above lived in the households of Samanabad Town were the respondents. Onerespondent was selected from each household. Method: In this cross-sectional study, by usingTaro Yamni Formula, 400 interviews were successfully conducted with a response rate of 100%.Other than demographics, 17-items questionnaire measured knowledge and practices aboutawareness and dengue prevention. Descriptive statistics and Pearson Correlation coefficientwas used for the analysis of the data. Data was analyzed by using SPSS 20. Results: Maturity ofthe community members’ 76 - 92% was aware and had knowledge of preventive measures. 66- 83% practicing regularly in the households. Data analysis indicated a positive and significantassociation between knowledge about dengue prevention and practices about dengueeradication (r = 0.000, p < .005). Conclusion: Consistent awareness campaigns for denguefever prevention and control enhances public knowledge and motivates individuals to adoptpreventive practices in day to day routine life. To foster and maintain public interest, attractivebeneficial public friendly practical economical practices need to be publicized to motivateyoung ones in communities. Orientation training programs of community paid health workerswill be helpful to improve skills to assert effective dengue fever preventive measures and controlactivities to reduce the breeding sites of mosquitoes.