STUDY ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PARASITIC INFECTION AND KNOWLEDGE, HYGIENIC PRACTICAL MEASURES OF PARASITIC INFECTIOUS PREVENTION IN VINH THAI COMMUNITY

Introduction: Intestinal parasite infections werecommonintropical country such as Vietnam. Having good knowledge of parasitic infectious prevention and changing risk behaviors can decrease the infection rate. Objective: To evaluate the parasitic infectious rate in Vinh Thai community before and after being health education and the changing of knowledge of parasitic infectious prevention and risk behaviors. Materials and methods: 60 households in Vinh Thai commune were interviewed their knowledge of parasitic infectious prevention and examined intestinal parasite infection by Kato technique and then trained the knowledge of parasitic infectious prevention. The interview and examination parasite infectiousrate were carried out after 6 months to evaluating their knowledge. Result: Before health education, the rate of intestinal parasite infection was 17.4% with the prevalence of Ascaris lumbricoides, hookworm, whipworm, pinworm, small fluke worm and co-infection with A. lumbricoides - whipworm, hookworm-whipworm were 0.1%; 8.0%; 5.8%; 0.6%; 0.3%; 1.2% and 3.0% respectively. Six months later the rate of intestinal parasite infection was decreased in 12.6% even though not statistical significantly. However, there were no case of small fluke worm and co-infection with hookworm-whipworm. Receiving health education, their knowledge of parasitic infectious prevention was higher significantly but their risk behaviors were not changed so much. Conclusion: Health education can change the rate of parasite infection with higher knowledge of parasitic infectious prevention but it was necessary continuous study to change the risk behaviors. Key words: intestinal parasite, health education