Effectiveness of Planned Teaching Programme on Malaria among High School Students in Selected Rural High Schools

Malaria is one of the major public health problems in the developing countries. Recent estimates indicate that between 300–500 million clinical cases and about 1.5 to 2.7 million deaths occur due to it1. Most of the 1 to 3 million who die each year from malaria are children4. The morbidity and mortality due to malaria in children tends to be very high, a planned teaching programme regarding malaria in high school students is important to make them aware of the disease which will enable them to prevent all complications.

To assess the knowledge of the high school students on malaria using structured knowledge questionnaire

To evaluate the effectiveness of planned teaching programme on malaria

To find the association between knowledge of high school students and selected demographic variables.

The findings of the study revealed that marked increase in the knowledge level of the high school students. The pre-test and post-test knowledge score of the high school students ranged from 17–42 and 30–50 respectively. In the pre-test, majority (63%) of the students had average knowledge. 13% of them had poor knowledge, whereas in the post test none of the subjects had scored below 20%. Most of them 61% had an excellent knowledge. Only 1% of them had an average knowledge. The mean pre-test score was 26.73 and the post-test score was 41.23. The mean percentage of pre-test (65%) is highest in the area of treatment and least (46%)in the area of signs and symptoms of malaria. Mean percentage of post-test (99%) is highest in the area of meaning and only (75%) in the area of complication of malaria. There was no significant association between pre-test knowledge level and the selected variables such as age (χ²=0.119), religion (χ²=0.059), education of father (χ²= 0.311), education of mother (χ²=0.626), occupation of father (χ²= 0.186), occupation of mother (χ²=0.649) at <0.05 level of significance.