Role of Behavior Change Communication in Acute Respiratory Infection Surveillance in Internally Displaced Persons' Camps of Taluka Kingri District Khairpur-Mirus, Sindh Province Pakistan, August-September 2022

Abstract

BACKGROUND: In 2022, monsoon rain and flood affected 23 districts in Sindh, Pakistan displacing six-million-people. Internally-displaced-persons-(IDPs) were prone to infectious- disease-outbreaks and acute-respiratory-infection-(ARI). Objectives of this study were to assess association between socio-demographic-characteristics, occurrence of ARI and compare pre-&-post health-education-effects on level of awareness regarding ARI. METHODS: Comparative cross-sectional-study carried-out in medical-camps of randomly selected seven-villages of District-Kharipur-Mirus. The 560 subjects were recruited through consecutive sampling. Health-education-sessions were taken & Behavior-Change-Communication tool (BCC) was applied. Epi-info was used to calculate frequencies, p-value and chi-square test was applied to determine associations RESULT: 560-patients were treated in medical-camps with different types of ARI. Among them females were 56%(n=312), ARI-cases were more predominate factor reported in medical-camps 41%(n=229) besides tonsillitis 25%(n=140), bronchitis13%(n=72), diarrhea11%(n=62) and severe-pneumonia4%(n=22). Before health-education-session 94%(n=529) affectees had no knowledge regarding ARI-prevention. The 57%(n=320) belonged to poor-family. After post-health-education-sessions 89%(n=499) peoples were sensitized regarding ARI-prevention methods. Among socio-demographic-variables, age-group(10-19years), hygiene-status & socioeconomic-status was strongly statistically associated with occurrence of upper-acute-respiratory-infection (p=0.01, p=0.04 & p=0.001) respectively. We didn’t find significant association between previous-history & occurrence of ARI (p=0.12). There was statistically significant difference between pre-&-post application of BCC tool on the level of awareness among IDPs(p=0.03). CONCLUSION: There is great impact of health-education on cumulatively raising level of awareness among displaced-population regarding control of infectious-diseases like ARI. Second decade of age, low socio-economic-status & bad-hygiene-status was identified as high-risk factors which can be addressed through health- education & behavior-change-communication.