“Does my teacher know anything about my disease?”: A cross sectional study to know the awareness level of teachers about hemophilia in Pakistan

Abstract

The objective is to assess the awareness level of hemophilia among schoolteachers. We used a closed questionnaire to conduct a cross-sectional study on hemophilia knowledge. Teachers of hemophiliacs students in Faisalabad took part in the study. A Cronbach's alpha was used to validate the questionnaire (a= 0.775). 9 schools having 111 teachers consented to the study. About 86.48% of the participants were female, while 13.52% were male. High school teachers accounted for 45.94%, middle school teachers for 24.32%, and preschool teachers for 29.74%. Furthermore, 33.20% of the participants had no understanding of hemophilia, 14.50 percent had a low level of information, 35% had a fair level of knowledge, and 17.30% had a high level of knowledge. Teachers in high school were the most knowledgeable about hemophilia (11.7 %). The greatest knowledge gap was in treatment, where just almost half the percentage of the teachers (47.7%) were aware of the proper treatment for hemophiliacs. One-third of the sports teachers had no idea what hemophilia was. It was found that no teacher had the ability to provide basic first aid to hemophiliacs. A large proportion of teachers at school going hemophiliacs had little or no understanding of hemophilia, and just a few teachers knew about the disease. As a result, more educational initiatives are needed to raise critical awareness.