Abstract:

Poor understanding of asthma can result in under- utilisation of available health services and reduced adherence to medications which ultimately leads to poorly controlled asthma and negatively impacts quality of life. Studies of association between asthma knowledge and asthma perceptions with socio- demographic variables (such as age, class level, ethnicity, religion, familial experiences) with and without health education intervention in Nigeria are sparse. The study identifies socio- demographic factors associated with knowledge and perceptions of asthma at the pre- test and post- test health education intervention among the secondary school students of Ile- Ife, Osun State, and South-West, Nigeria. It is a quasi- experimental design study which used a pre-tested 71- item, purpose designed, self-administered questionnaire to collect information on socio-demographic variables, knowledge and perceptions of the respondents on asthma before and after intervention. Data was collated and analyzed using appropriate descriptive and inferential study design. The results of this study showed that there were significant associations between posttest knowledge and variables of class level and religion. Another finding was that ethnicity showed a significant association between pretest perception score of the participants. It also showed there was a significant association between posttest perceptions and class level of the participants. We concluded that health education intervention influenced the association between certain socio- demographic variables (such as class level, religion and ethnicity) deployed in this study and the knowledge and perceptions of asthma among secondary school students in Ile- Ife, South- West, Nigeria.

Keywords: Asthma; Knowledge; Perceptions; Socio-Demographic variables.

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