Background: Dengue, a mosquito borne viral disease, has become an endemic in urban Bangladesh with periodic and cyclical outbreaks over the years. The current study aims to make a baseline descriptive and associative assessment of knowledge/awareness and practices of slum dwellers of Dhaka city regarding dengue across different sociodemographic characteristics.
Methods: A total of 200 participants, all aged 18 years or more, were selected by convenience sampling techniques from different slums of Dhaka and interviewed using a pre-validated questionnaire. The data obtained were analyzed using SPSS 26.0 software.
Results: While all participants were familiar with dengue, mainly through family and friends (70.5%), only 40.5% had good knowledge, significantly linked to education (p = 0.014, Cramer's V = 0.20). The mean knowledge and awareness score was significantly higher in participants who were male (p = 0.014, Cohen's d = 0.35) and who had a secondary level education (p = 0.028, ω2 = 0.03). The majority of the participants (94.0%) used anti-mosquito nets to prevent mosquito bites. Although all the study participants displayed poor prevention practice against dengue, the practice score varied significantly in terms of occupation (p = 0.004, ω2 = 0.06) with daily wage earners showing the maximum level of good prevention practice. In addition, a weak positive correlation (ρ = 0.216, p<0.01) existed between knowledge and practice.
Conclusions: The outcomes of the study will be helpful in designing and implementing tailored campaign strategies specific to the slum dwellers to uplift their knowledge, awareness and practice levels regarding dengue to ensure the maximum utilization of scarce resources.
Keywords: Dengue; awareness; knowledge; prevention practice; slum dwellers.