ISSN: 2226-6348
Open access
Tuberculosis (TB) has become one of the significant public health concerns with increasing mortality and morbidity rate in Malaysia. Undergraduate students of Health sciences are considered at high risk of getting TB. Lack of understanding about the source and transmission of the disease, as well as attitude and practices of the students may be a contributing factor. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practices towards tuberculosis (TB) among Health Sciences undergraduate students studying in a public university in Penang, Malaysia. This study was conducted among undergraduate students from UiTM Penang Branch, Bertam Campus. A quantitative method was used to collect the data. Results show that the majority of the respondents were aware of TB causal agents, symptoms, mode of transmission and the curability of TB as well as the effectiveness of BCG vaccination in preventing TB. Furthermore, it was discovered that a huge number of them were having misconceived ideas regarding TB and that was shown through their attitude towards TB disease. Overall, findings indicate good knowledge but moderate level of attitude and practices on tuberculosis disease. These findings emphasize the need for educating health sciences undergraduate students on tuberculosis disease to improve the risk and their attitude and practices.
Abd Rahman, N. H., & Mokhtar, K. S. (2015). Challenges of national TB control program implementation: the Malaysian experience. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 172, 578-584.
Al Khalili, S., Al Yaquobi, F., Al Abri, B., Al Thuhli, K., Al Marshoudi, S., Al Rawahi, B., & Al-Abri, S. (2022). Assessing Oman's knowledge, attitude and practice regarding tuberculosis: a cross-sectional study that calls for action. International Journal of Infectious Diseases. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2022.06.002
Akin, S., Gorak, G., Unsar, S., Mollaoglu, M., Ozdilli, K., & Durna, Z. (2011). Knowledge of and attitudes toward tuberculosis of Turkish nursing and midwifery students. Nurse education today, 31(8), 774-779. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2010.12.019
Da Silva, E. H., Lima, E., Dos Santos, T. R., & Padoveze, M. C. (2022). Prevalence and incidence of tuberculosis in health workers: A systematic review of the literature. American Journal of Infection Control. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2022.01.021
Emili, J., Scott, F., Upshur, R. E. G., Schmuck, M. L., & John, K. R. (2002). Attitudes toward tuberculosis of final year medical students from Canada, India, and Uganda. Teaching and Learning in Medicine, 14(3), 168-174.
Rundi, C. (2010). Understanding tuberculosis: perspectives and experiences of the people of Sabah, East Malaysia. Journal of health, population, and nutrition, 28(2), 114–123. https://doi.org/10.3329/jhpn.v28i2.4880
Harstad, I., Raen, A. R., Selseng, S., & Sagvik, E. (2022). Knowledge, attitudes and practices on tuberculosis among screened immigrants in Norway. A cross-sectional study. Journal of Clinical Tuberculosis and Other Mycobacterial Diseases, 100326. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jctube.2022.100326
Nishimura, T., Ota, M., Mori, M., Fujiwara, H., Takano, Y., Kato, S., Kawabe, H., & Hasegawa, N. (2018). Risk of tuberculosis infection among health care workers and nursing students in Japan. Journal of Infection and Chemotherapy, 24(11), 921-924. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jiac.2018.08.006
Salleh, S. F. M., Rahman, N. A., Rahman, N. I., & Haque, M. (2018). Knowledge, attitude and practice towards tuberculosis among community of Kulim municipal council, Kedah, Malaysia. International Medical Journal, 25(5), 299-303.
Jackson, M., Harrity, S., Hoffman, H., & Catanzaro A. (2007). A survey of health professions
students for knowledge, attitudes, and confidence about tuberculosis, 2005. BMC
Public Health, 7, 219.
Jamaludin T. S. S., Ismail, N., & Saidi, S. (2019). Knowledge, awareness, and perception towards tuberculosis disease among International Islamic University Malaysia Kuantan students. Enfermería Clínica. 29, 771-775. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enfcli.2019.04.116
Hassan, R. A. R., & Said, B. A. Knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding tuberculosis: Community-based study in Baghdad. International Journal of Advanced Research in Medicine; 1(2), 33-37. https://doi.org/10.22271/27069567.2019.v1.i2a.16
Zamri, H. F., Ruzan, I. N., Ramli, S. R., & Ahmad, N. (2022). Predominance of the East-Asian Beijing genotype in a Mycobacterium tuberculosis drug-resistant population in Central Malaysia. Journal of Global Antimicrobial Resistance.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jgar.2022.06.009
World Health Organization. In: global tuberculosis report. Geneva: WHO; 2017.
Available at:
http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/259366/9789241565516.
Easwaran, M., Ramachandran, D., Ramasamy, R., George, N., Mathew, M., Bazroy, J., & Singh, Z. (2015). Knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding tuberculosis among rural population in Tamil Nadu. International Journal of Medical Science and Public Health, 4(12), 1681.
Mohidem, N. A., Osman, M., Hashim, Z., Muharam, F. M., Mohd Elias, S., & Shaharudin, R., (2021). Association of sociodemographic and environmental factors with spatial distribution of tuberculosis cases in Gombak, Selangor, Malaysia. PloS one, 16(6), e0252146.
World Health Organization. Global Tuberculosis Report: WHO, Geneva. (2019). Accessed May 8, 2022.https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/329368/9789241565714-eng.pdf?ua=1
In-Text Citation: (Ibrahim et al., 2022)
To Cite this Article: Ibrahim, T. N. B. T., Nazli, S. N., Abdullah, A. H., Ismail, W. I., Nor, M. A. M., Shaifuddin, S. N. M., Sukumaran, S., & Shahid, N. S. M. (2022). Knowledge, Attitude and Practices towards Tuberculosis Disease among Health Sciences Undergraduate Students: A Cross-sectional Study. International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, 11(3), 1357–1366.
Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s)
Published by HRMARS (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode