Background: In secondary education institutions with large populations of students, an influenza pandemic become serious outbreak centers. This study was conducted to assess students' awareness about influenza A /H1N1 of secondary schools students of girls at Benha city, through assessing their knowledge, practices through asking questions and attitudes regarding to the disease. This study was descriptive design. Sample: The systematic random sample was consisted of 230 students who had studied at Benha Secondary School, El-Shimaa Secondary School and Om El-Moamneen Secondary School. Tool: Two tools were used for collecting data, the first tool is a structured interviewing questionnaire sheet that consisted of five parts to gather data in relation to socio-demographic characteristics, environmental home condition data, students' knowledge related to influenza A/H1N1, students' practices through asking questions related influenza A/H1N1, and students' attitudes related to influenza A/H1N1, and the second tool is observational checklist to assess environmental schools condition. Result: The main findings were: 85.7% of the studied sample had a satisfactory knowledge about the disease and the main source of their knowledge was TV, their practices through asking questions was good for 60.4%, and attitudes was positive for 52.2%. There was also high statistical significant correlation between their total knowledge, practices through asking questions and attitudes toward the disease. Conclusion: This study concluded that the studied sample had high awarness about influenza A/H1N1 influenza. This study recommended that: Increasing the health educational message provided through mass media because they are very effective health educational methods, and reinforcing health educational programs for school children in different forms as in subjects, school activities to enhance their abilities to react and respond influenza A/H1N1 situation. |
