456 Document heading Children’s basic knowledge and activities for dengue problem solution: an islamic religious school, Southern Thailand Charuai Suwanbamrung * School of Nursing, Walailak University, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Disease (2012)456-464 Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Disease journal homepage:www.elsevier.com/locate/apjtd *Corresponding author: Charuai Suwanbamrung, Asst. Prof. Dr. in School of Nursing, Walailak University, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand. Tel.: +66-7567-2101 Fax: +66-7567-2103 E-mail: Scharuai@wu.ac.th 1. Introduction Dengue is one of the most important arthropod-borne viral infections affecting humans. Worldwide, an estimated 2.5 billion people are at risk of infection, approximately 975 million of whom live in urban and rural areas in tropical and sub-tropical countries [1] . In Thailand, dengue has been a significant public health problem for the past fifty years. Although the mortality rate has decreased in hospitals, the morbidity rate has unfortunately increased in all areas from 1998 to 2009. The southern area, especially, has higher dengue incidence than other areas, possibly due to factors such as a greater number of rainy days, more rainfall, higher relative humidity, and a warmer temperature [2] . Southern Thailand has a dengue problem because the high morbidity rate and high larval indices. Nakhon Si Thammarat is one of the fourteen provinces in S outhern Thailand with several high risk dengue communities. The Islamic community studied consisted of 128 households in 600 square meters. The locations of the houses in the community were semi-urban, closed households, low socioeconomics (mean 5 124.35 baht/month), and almost all were laborers and fisherman. The population in the community was 733, consisting of 357 males, 376 females which was divided into the following age groups: 0-5 years (36 people), 6-12 years (113 people), 15-20 years (73 people), 21-40 years (239 people), 41-60 years (192 people), and more than 60 years ( 80 people) . Thus, most of the populations were children. In the past years, two children ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: Received 27 August 2012 Received in revised form 7 September 2012 Accepted 10 November 2012 Available online 28 December 2012 Keywords: Children’s activities Dengue knowledge Islamic religious school Muslim community Southern Thailand Objective: To develop children’s basic knowledge and activities to solve the dengue problem, and to evaluate the results from children’s activities. Methods: Participatory Action Research (PAR) was applied in five steps: 1) preparation step; 2) assessment step; 3) children’s activities planning step; 4) implementation step; 5) evaluation step. Basic knowledge of dengue was evaluated by questionnaires (17 items) and analysis pre and post-activities by a Chi-square statistic test. The children’s understanding of the dengue problem was evaluated by drawing pictures and participation of children’s activities. Larval Indices (BI, HI, and CI) were ratio analysis which related dengue outbreak measurement. Results: Three groups for children’ activities were: 1) group leaders (13 children); 2) general children; 3) a support group from the community. “Education of dengue learning”, “dengue prevention campaign”, and “the recycle garbage bank” were core children’s activities. Most children’s knowledge question items showed an increase from pre-activities to post-activities, and a half of all questions items were statistically significantly different (P<0.05). There were five categories of children’s reflection from the drawn picture that showed understanding of the solution to dengue problems and methods for eliminating sites of mosquito breeding in the community. Their households had increased garbage management, and thus decreased numbers of mosquito breeding types such as larval indices (BI, HI, and CI) which decreased from before the activities (93, 30, and 14) to after them (7, 5, and 1). Furthermore, no instances of dengue morbidity or the mortality rate occurred during the study. Conclusions: Although there was an increase in the children’s knowledge and activities, and a decrease in larval indices ratio, the high risk of a dengue epidemic might be found because the ratios of larval indices were based on community’s behaviors. Thus, it is essential for children and all stakeholders in and out of the community needed to better combat the dengue problem. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect