Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2008 Jul 9;3(7):e2620.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002620.

Knowledge, awareness and practices regarding dengue fever among the adult population of dengue hit cosmopolitan

Ahmed Itrat  1 , Abdullah Khan, Sunniya Javaid, Mahwash Kamal, Hassan Khan, Sannia Javed, Saira Kalia, Adil Haleem Khan, Muhammad Imran Sethi, Imtiaz Jehan
Affiliations

Knowledge, awareness and practices regarding dengue fever among the adult population of dengue hit cosmopolitan

Ahmed Itrat et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Background: The World health Organization (WHO) declares dengue and dengue hemorrhagic fever to be endemic in South Asia. Despite the magnitude of problem, no documented evidence exists in Pakistan which reveals the awareness and practices of the country's adult population regarding dengue fever, its spread, symptoms, treatment and prevention. This study was conducted to assess the level of knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding dengue fever in people visiting tertiary care hospitals in Karachi, Pakistan.

Methods: A cross-sectional pilot study was conducted among people visiting tertiary care hospitals in Karachi. Through convenience sampling, a pre-tested and structured questionnaire was administered through a face-to-face unprompted interview with 447 visitors. Knowledge was recorded on a scale of 1-3.

Results: About 89.9% of individuals interviewed had heard of dengue fever. Sufficient knowledge about dengue was found to be in 38.5% of the sample, with 66% of these in Aga Khan University Hospital and 33% in Civil Hospital Karachi. Literate individuals were relatively more well-informed about dengue fever as compared to the illiterate people (p<0.001). Knowledge based upon preventive measures was found to be predominantly focused towards prevention of mosquito bites (78.3%) rather than eradication of mosquito population (17.3%). Use of anti-mosquito spray was the most prevalent (48.1%) preventive measure. Television was considered as the most important and useful source of information on the disease.

Conclusion: Adult population of Karachi has adequate knowledge related to the disease 'dengue' on isolated aspects, but the overall prevalence of 'sufficient knowledge' based on our criteria is poor. We demonstrated adequate prevalence of preventive practices against the disease. Further studies correlating the association between knowledge and its effectiveness against dengue will be helpful in demonstrating the implications of awareness campaigns.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Sources of Information on Various Aspects of Dengue Fever.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Guzman MG, Kouri G. Dengue: an update. Lancet Infect Dis. 2002;2:33–42. - PubMed
    1. Gubler DJ. The global emergence/resurgence of arboviral diseases as public health problems. Arch Med Res. 2002;33:330–342. - PubMed
    1. Gubler DJ. Epidemic dengue/dengue hemorrhagic fever as a public health, social and economic problem in the 21st century. Trends Microbiol. 2002;10:100–103. - PubMed
    1. Halstead SB. Is there an inapparent dengue explosion? Lancet. 1999;353:1100–1101. - PubMed
    1. Porter KR, Beckett CG, Kosasih H, Tan RI, Alisjahbana B, et al. Epidemiology of dengue and dengue hemorrhagic fever in a cohort of adults living in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2005;72:60–66. - PubMed