Publication: Awareness of thalassemia and attitude towards thalassemia screening among students in the health campus, Universiti Sains Malaysia
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Date
2023-06
Authors
Hilmi, Nur Akilah Mohd
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Abstract
Thalassemia is an inherited blood disorder that poses a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. It is transmitted as an autosomal recessive pattern. It is known that thalassemia screening programmes are effective in controlling the prevalence of new birth cases. The study aims to assess the awareness of thalassemia and attitude towards thalassemia screening among students in the Health Campus, USM. A cross-sectional study was conducted on students aged 19 to 26 years old. Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire. 211 students from the School of Health Sciences, School of Medical Sciences and School of Dental Sciences, USM who fulfilled the inclusion criteria of this study. They were selected through a probability simple random sampling method. Data collected were statistically analysed using the SPSS software version 27. The study used descriptive statistics and Pearson Chi-square. The results show that 125 (59.2%) of participants have an average level of awareness of thalassemia and 88 (41.7%) of participants have a positive attitude towards thalassemia screening respectively. There was no association between awareness score and attitude score (p = 0.093), the result shows only 32 (47.1%) of participants have good awareness and positive attitude. Lastly, there was no association between sociodemographic factors [age (p = 0.119), gender (p = 0.774), ethnicity (p = 0.228), year of study (p = 0.234), family history of thalassemia (p = 0.739)] and the level of thalassemia awareness. In conclusion, the level of thalassemia awareness and attitude towards thalassemia screening among students must be enhanced and improved so that they are more knowledgeable about preventing thalassemia and can help promote the thalassemia screening programme to the public.