Tuberculosis patients detected among the first grade middle and high school students
during the period of 1973 and 1974 were questioned on two major points to obtain
information on the following: 1) some social aspects of the students' backgrounds, and
2) knowledge, attitude and practice related to tuberculosis. The total number of the
students questioned included 238 middle school students and 396 high school students.
The results were as follows:
1. Some social aspects of the students' backgrounds
The distribution of 41)e trample by sex showed that 60.4% of the students were male
and 39.6% were female. In high school, the mode for age was 16 years old and in
junior high school, 13 years old. These two age groups comprised 42.7% and 47.5%
respectively of tile students in the high school and junior high school age groups.
The occupation of the students' guardians varied widely, The largest number of
guar(loans were involved in retail (27.5% of the high school group and 22.3% of the
junior high school group), followed in order by clerical work, government employee,
service business, agriculture and technical work. Also 2.5% of the middle school
students and 4.0% of the high school students reported their parents or guardians to be
unemployed. There were many patients who dud not answer the question about their
parents' occupation. These included 23.7% of the high school group and 38.7% of tile
middle school group.
As to the economic condition of the students' families, the students were divided into
three groups, "affluent or higher than middle class," "middle class" and "lower than
middle class or poor." The majority(66.6%) of the students belonged to the middle class,
and 23.0% to the lower than middle class or poor, while 9.0% rated themselves the
affuluent or higher than middle class.
The most frequent family size was 6 persons (28.7f6 of the sample) and the most
frequently reported birth order of the students in the sample was first born (25.971)
When questioned regarding discipling in the home, 84. 1% of the high school and
76.1% of the middle school students replied that it was "moderate" or "adequete", and
those whose parents were indifferent"comprised 3.3% of the high school group and 1.7%
of the middle school group.
Questions about the future occupation of students in high school showed that quite a
large number wanted to be scholars or teachers. Among the high school students, this
group amounted to 23.5% and among middle school student, 22.7%.
Regarding their feelings of self-worth, 20.5% of high school and 45.4% of junior high
school students reported that they were satisfied. An agregated 23.3% of the sample
reported feelings of inferiority, dissatisfaction and unrest.
The majority of the cases in high school (81.8%) and about half of the middle school
cases (49.6%) were discovered by the mass photoflurograpy survey.
Student with tuberculosis patients in the family included 10.6% of the high school
students and 10.5% of the middle school students.
2. Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice Related to Tuberculosis
To test the knowledge about tuberculosis, students 1·ere asked to define the word
"tuberculosis". The results show that 84.891 of high school students and 48.2% of the
middle school students were able to do so.
Students learned about tuberculosis from their school studies from friends and through
the mass media. About 36. 1% of the high school students reported that they had
learned about TB at school, while only 10.9f4 of the middle school group reported school
as their source of TB knowledge. The rate of students who had teamed it from friends
or acquaintances were 20% in high school and 14.7% in middle school. As to the mass
media each individual medium along made a very small contribution as the sole source
of information about tuberculosis, but the mass media played quite a significant role
when taken together. The Percentage of students who learned about tuberculosis
through a combination of two or more of the mass media. (TV, radio, periodicals
leaflets, poster, etc.) was 22.2%.
With regard to knowledge about some characteristics of tuberculosis 77.8% of the high
school students and 63.5% of the middle school students reported tuberculosis as a
curable disease. And tuberculosis was a]so identified as an infectious disease by 64.9%
of high school students and 44.3% of middle school students.
Knowledge about the significance of the tuberculine test was shown by 65.2% of the
high school students and 23. 1 f4 of the middle school students.
And also the majority of students (47 3% of the high school group and 37.0% of the
muddle school group) thought that intake of nutritious food was the most efficient way
for Prevention of the disease and only 13.5% of the high school group and 11.9% of the
middle school groups reported that BCG was the most effective preventive measure
With regard to knowledge oncase-finding 81.0% of the high school students and
72.3% of the muddle school students answered that X-ray examination was most
efficient for that purpose.
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