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Tanzania is experiencing the increase burden of Sickle cell disease, with an estimate of 20.6% prevalence Sickle Cell carriers. However, there is no preventive measure has been put in this area by the government, a great focus has been directed in the diagnosis and management and national guideline emphasis on the care of people affected by Sickle Cell Disease.
This study intended to determine the efficacy of premarital genotype screening and counselling on knowledge and attitude toward Sickle Cell disease among university students in Dodoma Tanzania.
A non-controlled quasi-experimental study was conducted from June to September 2020 among 697 randomly recruited first-years university students from the University of Dodoma. Pre and post-test knowledge and attitude information were collected through structured self-administered questionnaires. Health education on Sickle Cell disease were performed, also screening procedure was done to obtain the prevalence of Sickle Cell Trait among participants. SPSS version 20 was used to analyze both descriptive and inferential statistics data. Charts, tables, and figures were used to present the findings.
The mean age of participants was 23.20 ±2.00 years. Of all the participants, males were 59.7% (n=416). The prevalence of the Sickle Cell trait was 15.6% (n=109). The mean knowledge score at pretest was 0.009±1.014 which improved to 0.365±0.901 on the posttest, with a statistically significant difference (t=6.965, p<0.01). There was a mean attitude score difference at pretest and posttest responses with pretest -0.086±0.996 and improved to 0.017±0.999 on the posttest, with a statistically significant difference (t =12.417, p <0.01).
The results of linear regression showed that knowledge change was not statistically associated with other predictors (p>0.05). The attitude change was significantly predicted with change of knowledge (B=0.089, p<0.05; 95% C.I:0.016, 0.161).
Health education demonstrated to be effective intervention towards change in knowledge and attitude towards sickle cell disease among University students. |
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