Effectiveness of malaria education program based on Health Belief Model on improving Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Malaria Prevention among university students in Conakry, Guinea

AbstractIntroduction:Malaria is caused by the bites of an infected female mosquito, a vector-borne disease which the parasite is transmitted to humans. Guinea’s whole population is susceptible to getting malaria. The aim of this study was to develop, implement and evaluate the effectiveness of the malaria education program using the Health Belief Model (HBM) to improve the knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of malaria prevention among university students in Conakry, Guinea.Methods:A clustered randomized controlled trial (RCT) with clustered sampling method was used to select the participants from two universities. Sample size was a total of 162 respondents, with 81 respondents for each group. malaria education program had eight sessions with approximately 6 hours and 30 mins. There were four time points of data collection included baseline, post-test, 2 weeks follow up and 2 months follow up. Intention to treat (ITT) method was used. Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) was computed to investigate the effectiveness of the malaria education program on KAP of malaria prevention, after adjusting with covariates.Results:At 2 months follow up, there was 62 (76.5%) and 61 (75.3%) out of 81 in the intervention and control group respectively. This study showed that intervention group had higher knowledge score and practice score at 2 months follow up compared to control group at baseline respectively, adjusted with covariates(P<0.05). Nevertheless, there was no difference in attitude score of the intervention group at post-test, 2 weeks follow up and 2 months follow up compared to control group at baseline respectively, adjusted with covariates (P>0.05).Conclusion:In conclusion, malaria education program could improve knowledge and practice of malaria prevention across time points among university students in Conakry, Guinea. The benefit of having this program is to reduce the burden of malaria in the community through awareness about malaria prevention.Trial Registration:PACTR202102614259601