Effects of Improving Health Literacy on Malaria by Village Health Volunteers in the Thai-Cambodian Border Area, Sisaket province, Thailand

Abstract

The objective of this quasi-experimental study was to investigate the effect of malaria health literacy development among village health volunteers in the Thai-Cambodian Border area, Sisaket province, Thailand.  A total of 238 village health volunteers were enrolled by using a cluster random sampling method of 3 districts in the border area. Data were retrieved before and after experiments from 1^st February 2020 to 31^st March 2020 using questionnaires. A multilevel mixed-effects linear regression was used for analyzing the mean difference score of malaria health literacy. Presented in terms of adjusted mean difference and 95% confidence interval. Results from this study showed that most of the village health volunteers were female (71.43%) with a mean age of 47±9.79 years. Of these 12.9% used to have a history of malaria infection. The participants received malaria screening and malaria workshops were 42.02% and 70.71%, respectively. Results showed a high score of all health literacy skills of malaria included: cognitive, accession, communication and social support, decision, self-management, and media literacy skills both before and after the experiment. The mean scores of 6 skills of health literacy before the experiment were 7.95±1.61, 3.62±0.67, 3.56±0.89, 3.92±0.73, 3.77±0.94, and 3.82±0.96 respectively. The mean scores of 6 skills of health literacy after experimental were 8.67±1.24, 4.02±0.52, 3.99±072, 4.15±0.48, 4.15±0.60, and 4.20±0.66 respectively. In addition, a total score of malaria health literacy was also high before and after experimental (56.72% and 84.03). Health literacy scores before and after the experiment were significant differences. Especially, their health literacy scores after the experimental increased more than before the experiment 15.42 points (Adjusted mean difference = 15.42, 95% CI. = 12.10-18.74 p-value <0.001). Therefore, public health officials should apply this model of health literacy development to promote health knowledge about malaria prevention according to the area context more efficiently.