Knowledge and Attitude Regarding Thalassemia Among the Community in Alor Setar

Abstract

Thalassemia, which is an autosomal recessive disease, is a significant public health issue in Malaysia as it is one of the most common genetic diseases in our country. Between 4.5 and 5.0% of the Malaysian population were reported to be carriers of this disease and 3.0 - 40.0% were HbE (c.79G>A) carriers. Although thalassemia is incurable, it is controllable with effective prevention strategies that could decrease the percentage of affected births by approximately 95%. Thus, this study aimed to determine the knowledge and attitude of a selected community, which is Alor Setar, regarding thalassemia. Respondents living in Alor Setar with a variety of demographic backgrounds were evaluated in terms of knowledge and attitude regarding thalassemia. The determination of the sample size was derived from a formula that utilized the current population number of 133,000 in Alor Setar and the prevalence of thalassemia at 5.0 percent. The results were analyzed using IBM Statistical Package for Social Studies (SPSS) version 29 software. Descriptive statistics were employed to illustrate the socio-demographic features of the subjects. Using the One-Way ANOVA test, the degree of knowledge and attitude was analyzed, and the Chi-Square test was employed to examine the relationship between the factors. The significance level was set at 0.05. The results indicated that 98.6% of the population of Alor Setar has a good knowledge of thalassemia, while the remaining percentage has a mediocre understanding. A significant proportion of the population of Alor Setar (86.1%) holds a good attitude towards thalassemia, while the remaining individuals hold a moderate stance on the matter. In conclusion, the research undertaken in Alor Setar unveiled a commendable degree of community awareness and perspectives regarding thalassemia. Significantly, the research demonstrated a correlation between residential location and attitudes towards thalassemia, underscoring the influence of geographical location on attitudes towards the illness. These results support the alternative hypothesis that there is a substantial association between factors associated with thalassemia and that knowledge and attitude regarding thalassemia are both favorable.