Abstract:

Objective To evaluate the accessibility to the health education materials for residents who lived in different schistosomiasis epidemic regions in Jiangxi Province, and understand the demand of these materials for local people in these regions. Methods A face-to-face questionnaire was performed on residents who were over 20 years old and lived in two pilot villages with lake and marshland(LM) and hilly and mountainous (HM) type schistosomiasis endemic regions, respectively, in Jiangxi Province. At the meanwhile, a semi-structured interview was carried out on administrative staffs in the survey sites including the administrators of related township, local workers for schistosomiasis control, village doctors and teachers. Results Total 348 questionnaires were issued to residents in HM-type village with 347 responded, 309 questionnaires to HM-type villagers with 304 responded. All answers were qualified. The print materials were the main sources for acquiring the knowledge of schistosomiasis control and health education in both villages. The accessible rate to printed health education materials in HM village was 85.5% (260/304) which significantly higher than that in LM village 60.8% (211/347) (P < 0.01). The accessible rate to video materials was low in both 2 villages, with 20.5% (71/347) in LM village and 18.4% (56/304) in HM village with no significant difference (P > 0.05). The accessible rates to tangible education materials was 57.4% (199/347) in LM village and 28.0% (85/304) in HM village with significantly higher in LM village (P < 0.01). The demand rate for tangible education materials was 75.9% (264/348) in LM village and 67.3% (208/309) in HM village, and for print materials 12.6% (44/348) in LM village and 10.4% (32/309) in HM village, with no significant difference between two villages (P > 0.05). The demand rate for video materials was 22.3% (69/309) in HM village, which is significantly higher than that in LM village 11.5% (40/348) (P < 0.05). Through visiting 93 local administrative staffs, a total of 254 effective suggestions were collected, in which 19.3% (49/254) of them considered that low-educated people were difficult to understand the printed materials and preferred tangible education materials, 13.4% (34/254) of them suggested that doctors should interpret the content of printed materials face to face to local people, and 16.9% (43/254) suggested the designs of education video should be more understandable and related to the life of local people with more case report. Total 27.2% (69/254) of them considered that combination of three types of materials (print, video and tangible materials) would obtain better effect of education than single one, 23.2% (59/254) believed that the government-community-school-family should work together to lead and promote the health education and schistosomiasis control. Conclusion People in the endemic areas are more willing to obtain understandable, intuitive, close to the real life, education material related to the schistosomiasis control. Printed materials are the main sources for acquiring knowledge of schistosomiasis control.

Key words: Schistosomiasis, Health education materials, Accessibility, Demand