Information support systems for dengue fever warning and prevention through community participation: A case study in Tiwang Tambon, Thung Song District, Nakhon Si Thammarat Province

Abstract

The objectives of this study were as follows: (1) to develop an Information Technology (IT) system to support dengue fever surveillance and warning; (2) to disseminate IT support systems for dengue fever surveillance of public health volunteers and related persons; and (3) to investigate the results of using IT support systems for dengue fever surveillance and warning. A total of 38 subjects voluntarily participated in this study. Data analysis was conducted by using statistics to obtain percentages, mean values, frequencies, and standard deviation. An opinion survey questionnaire was employed as the research instrument. Furthermore, content analysis was conducted for the information obtained from the open-ended questions, interviews, and group discussions. The findings of this study revealed that: (1) IT support systems for dengue fever surveil¬lance and warning, based on SDLC, have met the users’ needs in terms of system design, system stability, and usefulness of the system in performing tasks; (2) IT support systems for dengue fever surveillance and warning have been disseminated to public health volunteers and related persons through workshops both in computer labs and in the users’ organizations as well as through user guides so that they will understand and have good IT skills; (3) according to the satisfaction evaluation of SMS users, the subjects were found to have high level of satisfaction towards information accuracy, speed of information transfer, conciseness of short messages. The SMS users suggested that the dengue fever surveillance and warning message service still be available to them and that the service be applied to other news notifications. According to the satisfaction evaluation of the system users and administrators, the results showed that the subjects have high level of satisfaction towards the system design, the system stability, and the usefulness of the system in performing tasks. Although the IT support systems for dengue fever surveillance and warning can be effectively applied to disease control in Thung Song public health agencies, technology, the users’ needs and other factors change all the time. Monitoring and evaluation, maintenance for better improvement, IT users’ participation, activi¬ties that happen before and during the use of IT, are what to be put into action by the system administrators.