Knowledge and attitudes toward thalassemia in Walailak University staffs

Abstract

a-Thalassemia, b-thalassemia and Hb E are the most common genetic disorders in Thailand. The prevention and control program of thalassemia is necessary for reducing the number of patients. The levels of knowledge and attitudes toward thalassemia information may affect the efficiency of the prevention and control program. This study aimed to evaluate the knowledge and attitude toward thalassemia among Walailak University staffs. A total of 189 Walailak University staffs were recruited for answering the questionnaire and for screening the thalassemias and Hb E. Complete blood count (red cell indices) and DCIP test were used as screening tests. Hemoglobin typing was subsequently performed in the positively screened samples for identifying b-thalassemia and Hb E by an automated HPLC. In addition, multiplex gap-PCR was used to confirm the genotype of a-thalassemia 1 and a-thalassemia 2. Regarding their evaluations of the questionnaire, 55.6% of staffs had an acceptable score of the knowledge about thalassemia whereas more than 75% of staffs had an acceptable score of the attitudes toward thalassemia. The biosocial factors such as gender, graduated program were associated with the knowledge scores and attitude scores (P < 0.05). The biosocial factors explained the variance of knowledge scores and the variance of attitude scores 17.7% (adjusted R² = 0.177) and 11.5% (adjusted R² = 0.115), respectively. In addition, overall detection rate of thalassemias and/or Hb E-related syndromes was 34.4%. This study not only provides the levels of knowledge and attitudes toward thalassemia in Walailak University staffs leading to giving the informative knowledge of thalassemia but also encourages the prevention and control program of thalassemia in the organizational level.