Impact of pharmacist provided knowledge on dengue among selected school children

Abstract

Background: Dengue is a self-limiting acute mosquito transmitted disease caused by an arbovirus and spread by Aedes mosquitoes, sever infections results in DHF & DSS. Hence school education has been described as a ‘social vaccine’, and it can serve as a powerful preventive tool. Aim & Objectives: To assess the prevalence of mosquito borne diseases among School children, to assess the knowledge level of high school children regarding dengue and its prevention before and after the administration of planned teaching programme and to provide health education regarding dengue fever among school children. Materials and Methods:  A six months’ community based prospective observational study was conducted at selected schools of Gulbarga District. Total of 265 students were enrolled into the study by considering study criteria. Our inclusion criteria are all students of secondary school students of class 8th -10th. The data was collected from school children of RGEMS & AEMS in Gulbarga district. Results: In our study, most of the students were unaware of insect and species of mosquito which is responsible for causing DF, DHS & DSS and their knowledge was found to be excellent 3.6%, good 33.46%, average 37.90% and poor 25.00% before providing the knowledge. We pharmacist in our study played a vital role in providing education to the school children and their knowledge progress after our study was found, excellent 69.23%, good 30.76% and none of the students had average and poor knowledge. Conclusion: Our study concludes that the educational interventions by the pharmacist plays a vital role by educating the students and their by improving theirs and surrounding community health. Hence it is very imperative for pharmacists and other health care disciplinarians to carry out community based studies or educational interventions at all levels of students particularly in rural India where there is scope to improve their knowledge which helps students their parents and siblings and surrounding community.