Assessing the basic knowledge and awareness of dengue fever prevention among migrant workers in Klang Valley, Malaysia

• Main Authors: Chaudhary, Maryam N., Lim, Voon-Ching, Faller, Erwin Martinez, Regmi, Pramod, Aryal, Nirmal, Zain, Siti Nursheena Mohd, Azman, Adzzie Shazleen, Sahimin, Norhidayu
• Format: Article
• Published: Public Library of Science 2024
• Subjects: Q Science (General); R Medicine
• Online Access: http://eprints.um.edu.my/44857/
• Institution: Universiti Malaya

Background Globally, 390 million dengue virus infections occur per year. In Malaysia, migrant workers are particularly vulnerable to dengue fever (DF) due to mosquito breeding sites exposure and poor health literacy. Therefore, this study aimed to (i) assess the current DF knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP), and (ii) identify strategies to promote DF awareness, among migrant workers in Klang Valley. Method A survey was conducted with 403 Nepali, Filipino and Indonesian migrant workers through phone interviews and online self-administered questionnaires. Piecewise structural equation modelling was applied to identify predictor variables for DF KAP. Results Most respondents were male, working in the services industry, had completed high school, aged between 30-39 years and with less than ten years work experience in Malaysia. Overall, respondents' knowledge was positively correlated with attitude but negatively with practices. Older respondents, who had completed higher education, obtained higher knowledge scores. Similarly, those with working experience of >20 years in Malaysia obtained higher attitude scores. Respondents with a previous history of DF strongly considered the removal of mosquito breeding sites as their own responsibility, hence tended to frequently practise DF preventive measures. Respondents' knowledge was also positively correlated to their understanding of DF information sourced from social media platforms. Conclusion These findings highlighted: (i) the need for targeted DF educational intervention among younger and newly arrived workers with lower levels of education and (ii) maximising the usage of social media platforms to improve DF public awareness. © 2024 Chaudhary et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.