Knowledge and practices regarding malaria and its prevention and their associated socio-demographic factors among those living along the thailand-myanmar border
Issued Date
2022-11-07
Resource Type
ISSN
01251562
eISSN
26975718
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85147000334
Journal Title
Southeast Asian Journal of Tropical Medicine and Public Health
Volume
53
Issue
6
Start Page
551
End Page
573
Rights Holder(s)
SCOPUS
Bibliographic Citation
Southeast Asian Journal of Tropical Medicine and Public Health Vol.53 No.6 (2022) , 551-573
Suggested Citation
Yongchaitrakul S. Knowledge and practices regarding malaria and its prevention and their associated socio-demographic factors among those living along the thailand-myanmar border. Southeast Asian Journal of Tropical Medicine and Public Health Vol.53 No.6 (2022) , 551-573. 573. Retrieved from: https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/20.500.14594/87207
Title
Knowledge and practices regarding malaria and its prevention and their associated socio-demographic factors among those living along the thailand-myanmar border
Author(s)
Other Contributor(s)
Abstract
There are malaria case clusters in Thailand along the Thailand- Myanmar border. In this study, we aimed to compare the knowledge and practices regarding malaria and its prevention and their associated socio-demographic factors between those who entered the forest (forest goers) and those who did not (non-forest goers) among those living in Thailand along the Thailand-Myanmar border in order to inform efforts to reduce malaria clusters in this study population. The study consisted of 2 parts: a questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews. The inclusion criteria for questionnaire survey study subjects were: living in a study village during the study period, being able and willing to participate in the study and being aged 13 years. Inclusion criteria for in-depth interview subjects were: the same criteria as the questionnaire survey but subjects must be aged ≥18 years. Exclusion criteria for both the questionnaire survey and the in-depth interview subjects were being unable or unwilling to communicate with the researchers. Study subjects for the questionnaire survey were randomly selected from those living in two study villages in Tak Province, Thailand. Study subjects for the in-depth interviews were purposively selectively chosen based on their representation of groups in villages. The 2 parts of the study were conducted during March-April 2019. The minimum number of study subjects calculated to be needed for the questionnaire survey was 369. The minimum number of subjects chosen for in-depth interviews was 30 in order to represent 6 groups of people in the study population: housewives, leaders, the elderly, the youth, forest goers and non-forest goers. A total of 385 subjects were included in the questionnaire survey, 40.8% male, and 30 subjects were included in the in-depth interviews, 56.6% male. The mean (±standard deviation) age of questionnaire study subjects was 36.2 (±16.7) (range: 13-95) years and of in-depth interview subjects was 43 (±18) (range: 18-78) years. Among questionnaire subjects, 50.3% were forest-goers and among interview subjects 60.0% were forest-goers. About three-fourth (76.8%) of questionnaire forest-goers knew malaria mosquito biting times versus 90.6% of non-forest-goers (p=0.001). Almost all (97.4%) of forest-goers believed malaria is curable versus 78.5% of non-forest-goers (p=0.001). Almost half (45.4%) of forest-goers believed malaria was transmitted by drinking mosquito larvae contaminated drinking water versus 31.4% of non-forest-goers (p=0.003). Of the forest-goers, 22.8% believed malaria mosquitoes bite all day long versus 9.4% of non-forest goers (p 0.001). Forest-goers stated they did not take any mosquito bite preventive measures 53.7% of the time versus 16.2% of the time among non-forest goers (p 0.001). Bed nets were used by forest-goers 30.1% of the time and by non-forest-goers 78.5% of the time (p 0.001). About half (50.5%) of forest-goers had a good knowledge about malaria versus 38.2% of non-forest-goers (p=0.272). The only socio-demographic factor significantly positively associated with better preventive practices was being ethnic Karen (p=0.046). Malaria knowledge level was not significantly associated with preventive practices. Among interview subjects, the reason given for not using bed- or hammock-nets among forest-goers was the inconvenience of carrying them into the forest. Most forest goers used other methods to prevent mosquito bites, such as wearing long sleeve shirts and planting mosquito repellant plants. In summary, we found forest-goers had a greater knowledge about malaria but poor practices regarding malaria prevention. We conclude there are other factors besides knowledge that cause forest-goers to have poorer practices. These need to be determined in order to develop interventions to improve preventive practices in the study population. Further studies are needed to determine the cause of the disconnect between knowledge and practices in the study population.