Formal Education Related Pattern of Awareness and Basic Knowledge on Zika Virus Disease, among Women Visiting Children Immunization Unit in a Tertiary Hospital, Southeast Nigeria ()
ABSTRACT
Zika virus is transmitted through the bite of infected Aedesa egypti, or Aedes albopictus mosquito, and re-emerged as a disease of global public health importance in March/April 2015 in Brazil. The objective of this study is to assess the formal education related pattern of awareness, and basic knowledge on Zika virus disease, among women visiting children immunization unit in a tertiary hospital, in Nigeria. Study was conducted in 2016/2017 with 256 randomly selected respondents. Semi-structured questionnaire was used in the cross-sectional study. Findings including 77.8% of respondents with postgraduate educational qualification were aware that there is a disease known as Zika Virus Disease (ZVD), 62.0% for tertiary education qualification, 53.8% for secondary education level, 20.0% for primary education level, while none of the three respondents that had no formal education were aware of ZVD. The level of awareness increased with increasing educational qualification. These findings were analyzed using the Likelihood Ratio which was calculated to be 28.329, with P-value of <0.001. Television was the commonest source of first ZVD information. Overall mean percentage knowledge level of the different educational groups revealed as followed; no formal education 22.2%, primary level 12.0%, secondary level 46.1%, tertiary level 54.4%, and postgraduate level was 51.5%. The mean for the stated scores was 37.2%. Students’ T-Test at 95.0% confidence interval was 0.012, showing that the difference in the mean percentage scores between the groups was significant. Respondents with tertiary and postgraduate education qualifications recorded overall mean score above 50.0% each, while secondary, primary, and no formal education groups recorded overall mean percentage scores below 50.0%. Stepping up ZVD health education and awareness activities, especially among women with educational qualification below tertiary level will greatly improve the awareness and knowledge on ZVD among this study population.