Socio-Economic Factors Influencing Knowledge and Practice of Lassa Fever Prevention among Residents of Owerri-North L.G.A, Imo State

This study determined the relationship between Socio-economic factors influencing knowledge and practice of Lassa fever prevention among residents of Owerri-North L.G.A Imo State. Five specific objectives with corresponding research questions and five hypotheses guided the study. Descriptive study design and Cross-sectional study design was used for this study. A muliti-staged sampling technique, simple random sampling technique and a systematic random sampling technique was used to draw samples of 400 residents where 393 residents of Owerri-North Imo State responded. A structured questionnaire was used for data collection after being validated and its reliability tested. The data collected was analysed using frequencies, percentage the hypotheses were tested using chi-square statistics at ≤0.05 level of significance. The result revealed that the 47.1% between 28-37 and 33.3% above 47 years old. Respondent with formal education with majority 68.4% of tertiary education and 24.7 of secondary education have poor knowledge (42.9%) and others have good knowledge (57.1%) of Lassa fever. The study also revealed that good preventive practice among residents in Owerri- North exhibited towards preventing Lassa fever were high among participant that showed poor knowledge of the disease prevention methods (50.5%) and also to those with good knowledge 59.2% (P = 0.084, X = 2.995). The knowledge of Lassa fever is not significantly associated based on age, gender, marital status and educational status respectively (p= 0.309 x=2.347) (p=0.203 x=1.618) (p=0.944 x= 0.760) (p= 0.136 x=3.990).Respondents age, gender, and monthly income were significantly associated with the practice of Lassa (p-value = 0.016, 0.031 and 0.045 respectively). Education, marital and occupational status were not significant with the practice of Lassa fever prevention (p-value = 0.211, 0.605 and 0.787 respectively). The study also revealed that there is no significant association between knowledge and the practice of Lassa fever prevention (p-value = 0.084).Based on the findings, the researcher recommended that health communication messages on Lassa fever may help improve behavior of people towards the infection and practice towards prevention thus, There should be a call for educational intervention to improve the knowledge of Lassa fever among community members this will help towards its preventive practices. This is based on the expectation that good knowledge of Lassa fever can reduce the rate and spread of the Infection, food consumed should be properly processed and stored well in tight rat proof containers, and to put in place good preventive practices towards proper disposal of waste to reduce exposure and contact with mastomy rats.