Effectiveness of a Communication Package regarding Malaria and G6PD Deficiency among Primary School Students in Border Patrol Police Schools, Mae Hong Son Province

Abstract

Malaria is one of the most common parasitic diseases and a major public health problem along Thai international border especially among children and young people.
One-group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design research aimed to assess relationships and to compare understanding between before and after implementation of variables of knowledge about malaria, perception of malaria, G6PD deficiency, preventive behaviors before and after implementation, which rendered a communication, flipchart media and booklets to learn what were malaria, G6PD deficiency, malaria prevention and control measures that fostered the routine teaching. Number of samples was computed to get 88 school students aged 7-13 years from five border patrol police schools during 2021. Selection of the samples was a purposive sampling technique. The methods of assessment performed a questionnaire interview and a data analysis relied on percentages, means, S.D., and paired t-test. Results of the study revealed the variables having significantly different higher average scores were malaria knowledge, perception, G6PD deficiency knowledge, and preventive behaviors compared between before and after the implementation (p<0.05). Learning from the program suggested that it was effective to facilitate development of sustainable communication plus class learning in the schools being implemented, markedly, in the border endemic areas as a component to fulfill knowledge, perception and self-prevention to refrain from mosquito bites and dietary triggering blood lost from G6PD deficiency.