Occupational Diseases and Environmental Medicine, 2016, 4, 83-102
http://www.scirp.org/journal/odem
ISSN Online: 2333-357X
ISSN Print: 2333-3561
DOI: 10.4236/odem.2016.44010 September 27, 2016
Knowledge Attitude and Practices Related on
Prevention of Mosquito Borne Diseases and
Sanitation Conditions in a Salvadoran
Urban Community
Roberto Mejía
1
, Alexandre Ribó
1
, Edgar Quinteros
1
, Alejandro López
1
, Paola Villegas
2
,
Xavier F. Vela
3
, Ada Ruth Membreño
2
1
National Institute of Health, Ministry of Health of El Salvador, San Salvador, El Salvador
2
University of El Salvador, San Salvador, El Salvador
3
Scientific Advisor-Salvadoran Renal Foundation, Bronx, NY, USA
Abstract
Introduction: In El Salvador Mosquito Borne Diseases (MBDs) is a serious public
health problem due to produce morbidity and mortality. They produce a high eco-
nomic loss, which contributes to the collapse of the public health system. Over the
years, the Salvadoran public health system has invested large amounts of resources to
minimize the problem through campaigns against MBDs. Despite this, the popula-
tion is still affected by diseases such as dengue, and more recently chikungunya and
zika outbreaks. The aim of this study is to evaluate sanitation conditions variables
and identify knowledge, attitudes, practices related to the prevention of MBDs. Me-
thods: A cross-sectional survey about sanitation conditions and knowledge, attitudes
and practices on prevention of MBDs of inhabitant’s ≥ 15 years from an urban
community of a municipality with the highest number of cases reported in 2015. Re-
sults: Majority of respondents (98.2%) had direct supply of drinking water; however
96.4% of respondents were agreed that they had an inconsistent water supply. Re-
garding MBDs prevention respondents showed high acceptable knowledge (76.8%),
high favorable attitude (92.1%) and an acceptable implementation of practices to-
ward prevention reproduction of mosquitoes (58.5%) and a poor implementation of
practices to prevent mosquito bites (38.3%). Conclusions: The findings revealed high
acceptable knowledge about MBDs and a high favorable attitude regarding to pre-
vent them, but also revealed a scarce implementation of prevention practices. The
generalized storage of water on non-covered barrels because the inconsistent water
supplies, can be source of proliferation of mosquitoes and therefore increases the risk
How to cite this paper: Mejía, R., Ribó, A.,
Quinteros, E., López, A., Villegas, P., Vela,
X.F. and Membreño, A.R. (2016) Know-
ledge Attitude and Practices Related on
Prevention of Mosquito Borne Diseases and
Sanitation Conditions in a Salvadoran Ur-
ban Community. Occupational Diseases and
Environmental Medicine, 4, 83-102.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/odem.2016.44010
Received: July 26, 2016
Accepted: September 24, 2016
Published: September 27, 2016
Copyright © 2016 by authors and
Scientific Research Publishing Inc.
This work is licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution International
License (CC BY 4.0).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Open Access