Veronica Taonga Musonda*
Introduction: Sickle cell disease is a genetic autosomal recessive disease that causes considerable morbidity and mortality and affects millions of people globally. The WHO has advocated for SCD awareness, however, studies on the impact of these awareness programmes through knowledge, attitudes and practices assessment among caregivers has rarely been studied. Zambia lacks resources to support the increasing incidences of the disease, hence the need to find innovative ways to prevent complications of SCD, one of them being educating care givers on home based prevention of sickle cell crises. The objective of this research was to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and practices of caregivers of children with SCD towards SCD at Kitwe teaching hospital in Kitwe, Zambia.
Methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted on caregivers of children with SCD at Kitwe teaching hospital in Kitwe with a targeted sample size of 227 participants. Non probability sampling techniques was employed while self-administered questionnaires and interviews were used to collect data. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 22.0.
Results: A total of 192 (84.58%) respondents were included in the final analysis. Majority (65.6%) of the participants had good knowledge, 83.3% had a positive attitude towards prevention of sickle cell crises while 84.4% engaged in good practices to reduce frequency of SCC. Factors that influenced the level of knowledge included age, level of education, monthly income and social cultural practices as these were statistically significant (p<0.05).
Conclusion: The study reviewed that respondents had good knowledge about SCD and prevention of SCC. Majority had positive attitudes and good practices towards prevention of SCC. However, some caregivers are still lacking in knowledge, attitudes and practice towards SCD.
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