The Role of Knowledge and Practices in Schistosomiasis Transmission Among Primary School Children in Osun State, Nigeria

Background: Studies have documented various risk factors associated with schistosomiasis infection transmis-sion, but little is known about the influence of knowledge on practices that contribute to the transmission of the infection. This study, therefore, seeks to document the importance of knowledge on practices that contribute to the transmission of schistosomiasis among primary school children.

Methods: This study employed a descriptive study design. A total of 504 primary school children were recruited from three senatorial districts in Osogbo using convenience sampling. Vital information on knowledge of schis-tosomiasis infection and practices that aid its transmission was collected using a semi-structured interviewer-administered questionnaire. A twenty-one-point knowledge question was used to compute the knowledge score and dichotomized into good knowledge (≥ 10 points) and poor knowledge (<10 points), while sixteen points practice questions were used to compute the practice score dichotomized into good practice (≥ 8 points) and poor practice (< 8 points)

Results: A more significant percentage (93%) of the respondents had poor knowledge of schistosomiasis, alt-hough a good number of them (65.1%) exhibited good practice. A little above a third (35.9%) engaged in swim-ming, while about a fifth (22.8%) engaged in fishing. About a fifth (22.6%) engage in defecation in river water, while very few (4.0%) drink from such polluted water. The logistic regression model revealed that male re-spondents were 1.6 times more likely to have poor practices than their female counterparts (aOR 1.6, 95% CI 0.413-0.913), those who have received health talk on the infection were 27 times less likely to have poor practic-es (aOR 0.37, 95% CI 0.175-0.761), those who reported being positive for the infection were 4.4 times more likely to have poor practice (aOR 4.4, 95% CI 1.703-11.260) and those who had poor knowledge of the infection were 6.0 times more like to have poor practices relating to the infection (aOR 6.0, 95% CI 0.014-0.278).

Conclusion: Primary school children have poor knowledge of schistosomiasis, which influences the practices that aid infection transmission. Therefore, public health education is needed to control the infection.