KNOWLEDGE ATTITUDE BARRIERS AND PREVENTIVE BEHAVIORS OF TUBERCULOSIS AMONG MYANMAR MIGRANTS IN HUA FAI VILLAGE MAE SOT DISTRICT TAK PROVINCE THAILAND

Abstract

The study was conducted between middle of March to first week of April 2014, to describe independent variables (socio-demographic characteristics, information, knowledge, attitude and barriers towards prevention of TB), and to assess any association of these independent variables with the dependent variables (preventive behaviors). Data was collected using interviewer administrated questionnaire from total 392 participants. The 65.8% of respondents were females, 66.3% were married, 54.8% were Burmese, 36.0% were construction workers, 93.1% were at below the average International Wealth Index (IWI), 45.2% were living with 0-3 people, about 43.1% were living in Thailand for 5 years or less. 65% of respondents had low level of knowledge, 55.9% had low level of attitude, 41.3% had high level of barriers and 51.8% had low preventive behavior levels. Pearsons̀ Chi-square test was used to find out the associations and revealed that: marital status (p=0.008), level of education (p=0.002), current occupation (p<0.001), duration of stay in Thailand (p=0.001), IWI category (p=0.011), people living in the same room (p=0.008), family, friends, colleagues (p<0.001), newspapers and magazines (p=0.001), causes of TB (p<0.001), prevention of TB (p=0.001), mode of transmission of TB (p=0.001) and barrier levels (p,0.001) were associated with preventive behavior levels Multivariate analysis was done using Binary logistic regression: barrier levels (p<0.001), duration of stay in Thailand (p<0.016), current occupation (p<0.001) and information about TB healthcare center/service providers were the factors associated with preventive behaviors. As there were low levels of knowledge, low levels of attitude and high levels of barriers towards prevention of TB were found among the participants, community-based health promotion and education programs on TB should be strategically planned and implemented. Furthermore, screening camping for TB should be done with to carry out early case detection and treatments for TB.