Intervención educativa sobre conocimientos, actitudes y prácticas para la prevención del parasitismo en escolares y padres de familia de quinto, sexto, séptimo y octavo de básica de la parroquia La Asunción, Girón en el periodo de Julio 2013-Abril 2014.

Abstract

Background: Intestinal parasitism represents not only a health problem but also a social issue that affect developing countries and especially children population. The main causes of infection are low hygienic conditions that can be modified with the appropriated education. Objectives: Determine the effectiveness of educational intervention about knowledge, attitudes and practice associated to parasitism prevention and reduce the prevalence of this problem in children from La Asunción. Methods and materials: We performed a quasi-experimental study in La Asunción, Girón, Azuay; during July 2013-april 2014. 190 children from fifth to eight grade and 145 parents were part of our study. They were randomly divided into control and intervention group according to schools. We compared knowledge, attitudes and practice between both groups before and after educational intervention applying a questionnaire. The children were examined for parasite infection before and after our intervention. Results: In the intervention group we found that appropriated knowledge were 39.6% before and after 97.2% (p˂0.05). Appropriated attitudes increase from 48.11% to 97.16% (p˂0.05) after educational intervention. Appropriated practice changed from 66.6% to 69% (p= 0.741). In the control group there was no significant difference in any category. In the intervention group the infection rate before educational intervention was 46.22% and after this was 35.83%. Moreover the control group initially presents an infection rate from 29.80% after educational intervention the infection rate was from 56%. The relative risk was 0.690311 with a CI 95% (0.5241-0.9091). Conclusion: Educational intervention is a protective factor against parasitism.