Abstract
Introduction
Dengue fever is a serious issue which overwhelms the world. About 50–100 million dengue infections are reported annually including 500,000 of dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) cases with 22,000 deaths, mostly among children. In Cambodia, dengue remains a public health problem with 14 000 reported cases annually. The worst outbreak occurred in 2007 when 39 851 cases and 407 deaths were reported. The aim of this study was to investigate the factors associated with knowledge of dengue fever regarding symptoms, transmission and preventive practice among the population in rural Kampong Chhnang province.
Methods
The secondary data from a Rapid Survey that was conducted at the villages under the coverage of Cheab Health Center, Kampong Chhnang province, was used. The data were collected between August 2-4, 2019 using the multi-stage sampling with probabilities proportional to size (PPS) to select the samples. In total, 111 samples were collected in the survey. The knowledge of dengue fever (good vs poor) of participants with different socio-demographic characteristics was compared using Pearson’s chi-square test, or Fisher’s exact test as appropriate with significant level of 5%. Multivariate logistic regression using stepwise backward was performed to adjust for all potential confounding factors in the study. Adjusted Odds Ratios (AOR) with 95% confidence intervals were reported and p-value ? 0.05 was considered the statistically significant level throughout the analysis.
Results
We found that mean age of respondents was 37.7 (± 11.2) years, and the age ranged from 18 to 65 years. The majority of respondents were women (64%), married (81.1%), farmer (69.4%), completed primary school (47.8%), and the average income per month was about 380,000 Riels. Only 43.2% of participants had good knowledge towards dengue diseases. There was no significant difference of levels of knowledge toward dengue fever between socio-demographic factors in this study.
Conclusions
There is a need to increase health promotion activities through campaigns and social mobilization to increase awareness about dengue fever. This activity would help to raise positive attitudes and manage better preventive practices towards dengue fever among the public contributing to elimination of dengue disease in the country.