SUMMARY
The study determines the knowledge and perception of dengue among staff nurses in selected health institutions in Benin-City, Edo State Nigeria. Thedemographic variables of the respondents examined, characterized more of the female gender this is because the profession has traditionally been predominated by females. Majority of the respondents are within age 30-44 and Married. A large number of the nurses have both RN and RM as this is a basic criterion for employment in some health institutions. Respondents with PhD reported highest proportion with good level of knowledge of dengue. The test of association shows that there is a significant relationship (p<0.05) between the qualification of the nurses and their perception. Christian religion was significantly higher than the Muslims religion in this study possibly because of the location (Benin) which is predominantly occupied by Christians and majority were also from Bini and Igbo ethnicity. Most of the nurses have experience of between 1 to 5 years and majority of them were nurses from UBTH owing to the fact that UBTH has more nursing staff than Central hospital.
The study revealed the level of knowledge of dengue among the nurses. From the responses of the respondents, it was found that majority 194 (68.8%) of the responses were able to define correctly what dengue is,101(35.8%) correctly answered the question as aedes mosquito as the carrier of the dengue fever. 159(56.4%) correctly reported the symptoms present in dengue,134(47.5%) reported correctly that the major diagnostic test in dengue fever. Overall, 111(39.4%) of the nurses reported poor level of knowledge of dengue, 99(35.1%) have fair knowledge, while 72(25.5%) have good knowledge. Majority knew what dengue and were also able to note that dengue is caused by a virus and its mode of transmission, but there was low level of knowledge on the type of mosquito that spread dengue, the diagnostic tests and the most vulnerable groups, this is owing to the fact that dengue is not a reportable disease in Nigeria. This is in accordance to the study by Kamran and Mansoor (2017) assessing the knowledge of the management of dengue fever among nurses working in a tertiary hospital, from this number, majority of the nurses showed insufficient level of understanding of the epidemic disease. This poor understanding and knowledge are also reflected in their practice and working in real time. It was surprising that considerate number of respondents found it difficult to even identify the exact vector. Perhaps they confused it with anopheles’ mosquito that has a similar life cycle pattern and mode of transmission of disease. This study is also in line with a study carried out by Yusuf and Ibrahim (2019) on the knowledge, attitude and practice towards dengue fever prevention and associated factors among public health care professionals. Nearly half 148 (49.3%) demonstrated a moderate level of knowledge, 140 (46.7%) a neutral level of attitude and 156 (52%) a low level of practice towards dengue fever prevention. In the conclusion, Knowledge, attitude and practice of health care professionals were not satisfactory towards dengue fever. Additional training is required to plug this gap.
This study is with variance with Baba et el. (2017) who reports that there’s lack of awareness of dengue fever by health care providers and lack of prioritization by the public health authorities in Nigeria. This study is also in accordance with the study by Jain et al. (2016) that showed that among nurses of tertiary care institutions, the main source of information about dengue fever was obtained from mainstream media such as the internet and other media platforms. However, isolated knowledge on symptoms and prevention maybe considered somewhat adequate, the known preventive measures mainly focuses on prevention from mosquito bite.
