Anti-terrorism questionnaire development and effectiveness of anti-terrorism education programme on Malaysian public readiness reaction and willingness
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Date
2018
Authors
Hamzah, Mohd Shaharudin Shah Che
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Pusat Pengajian Sains Perubatan, Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
Terrorism nowadays has become common in many parts of the world and it is
slowly coming to Malaysia. Recent developments have seen terrorism evolved in its
complexity with the age of information and technology. It now threatens the well-being
of innocent life and civil society. This study was initiated by developing and validating a
questionnaire, namely TeRRW to access the level of readiness, reaction and willingness
among the Malaysia public towards antiterrorism. The internal consistency reliability
based on the value of Cronbach’s alpha of TeRRW questionnaire was above 0.70 (ranging
from 0.730 to 0.883) and this showed that questionnaire is valid to access the public
perception towards terrorism. Then followed with the development of an anti-terrorism
educational material which was based on local needs. Using these materials, a crosssectional
study and community intervention involving 400 residents from Kota Bharu and
Gua Musang districts was conducted within a year from January 2017 until December
2017. The TeRRW questionnaire aims to identify and evaluate the status of readiness,
reaction and willingness against terrorism in the community. The association of
sociodemographic factors with these three domains were also analyzed. Out of 400
respondents, only 250 (62.5%) showed a reaction and 150 (37.5%) did not react and it
further showed only race or ethnicity and job category were found to be significantly
associated with those results. The community intervention using anti-terrorism
educational material analysis showed that these three domains changed significantly after
an intervention was conducted. The anti-terrorism educational material developed to
educate and expose the public towards antiterrorism among local communities were found
to be effective, but the impacts were decreased within time. This study concluded that the
community response towards intervention of antiterrorism such as anti-terrorism
educational material was positive to educate and expose the public towards antiterrorism
but need to be done in a schedule in order to maximize the impact. This kind of program
could increase community alertness level towards terrorism in Malaysia.
Description
Keywords
Terrorism