Level of Awareness of Hepatitis ‘C’ Among Primary Grade: A School Health Intervention

Abstract

There is a lack of awareness about hepatitis C due to poverty, involvement of quacks and less penetration of mass media. To develop the awareness of hepatitis C among primary grade students. A total of 150 students of primary grade among 300, of Government sector Middle School Lahore were selected throughmultistage cluster sampling. A quasi-experimental study was conducted in the time period of 6 months from April 2014 to Sep 2014. Data analysis was done with SPSS 20. After describing the important variables, average percentages were used to find out the difference between pre and post awareness performances andt score and p value was calculated. All the students (150) were boys, 98% belonged to a lower middle class family with the age of 9-12 years. During pre-testing evaluation, students were never given the knowledge about hepatitis C, its source of transmission (contaminated syringes) and its secondary prevention. Only3% knew that it can be prevented. About 61% thought that it is a disease of adults. Only 21.1% students thought it can be cured. In post awareness assessment after 3 sessions of interactive learning, 92% students understood the prevention of hepatitis C disease, its transmission (syringes 88.7%, blood transfusion 91%),signs (effects on liver 92.9%), symptoms (88%), prevention in high prevalent areas (sterilized syringes and screened blood transfusion 86.5%) and management (88.7%). This study showed that it may be an important school health based intervention to educate students about the transmission, prevention and management of hepatitis C, which may help in declining the disease burden. Hepatitis C, Unsterilized syringes, Hepatitis C Awareness, Prevention of Hepatitis C.