Primary school teachers' attitudes and knowledge regarding pupils' hearing loss and the challenges they encounter while teaching in central Tanzania

Abstract

Background Primary school teachers are early educators who encounter pupils with disabilities earlier than other educators at different levels. Hearing loss tends to impair cognitive development and academic performance pupils. This study aimed to address such an existing gap in Tanzania since there is no any study that has been conducted in our country on similar topic despite being of public health significance. Methods A community based cross-sectional study design was used where 405 primary school teachers in Manyoni district were recruited using multistage cluster sampling technique. Data was collected using Swahili translated semi-structured questionnaires and analysis was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23. A p-value < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant Results In this study 70.9% of primary school teachers had poor knowledge toward hearing loss among pupils and only 8.1% of teachers expressed good level of knowledge about hearing loss. This study has found a significant association between the overall knowledge of teachers and age as the only socio-demographic characteristic of the study participants (P-value = 0.000) though no association was found between marital status, education level, having children and sex (p-values being 0.534, 0.28, 0.261 and 0.934 respectively). Pertaining attitude of teachers toward hearing loss among pupils, this study found 44.8% to have negative attitude, 48.1% had intermediate attitude and only 3.5% had positive attitude. On the other hand, 75% of teachers agreed that hearing impaired students would achieve better academically in special schools. The association between socio-demographic and professional characteristics and the overall attitude of teachers towards pupils’ hearing loss was not statistically significant. This study has found a statistically significant association between the overall knowledge and overall attitude of primary school teachers towards pupils’ hearing loss (p-value = 0.024). Conclusions Primary school teachers' attitudes and knowledge regarding pupils' hearing loss was found to be mostly poor to intermediate. Most teachers had limited knowledge of hearing loss especially on the causes, risk factors and symptoms of hearing loss. Educational campaigns to improve knowledge and attitude of primary teachers toward pupils’ hearing loss for excellence academically, socially and emotionally should be spearheaded in Manyoni district.