Edutainment and infographics for schistosomiasis health education in Ndumo area, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

Abstract Educational interventions targeting communities which are at risk of contracting schistosomiasis infection may empower them to develop capacity to minimize the spread of the disease. We compared the effectiveness of health education interventions for schistosomiasis knowledge uptake among school-going children in Ndumo area, KwaZulu-Natal using a quasi-experimental trial. An assessment of health education interventions (edutainment and infographics) in the community’s own language and socio-cultural context was done among primary school-aged children in two primary schools in Ndumo, a schistosomiasis endemic area (37%). The study involved 37 students from Munywana primary where the intervention was on infographics and 44 from Maphindela where the intervention was on edutainment. The students wrote a schistosomiasis knowledge test, 1 month before the knowledge uptake interventions were implemented. The same test was given to the two groups after the interventions. Baseline and post-intervention scores were used to test whether the interventions improved schistosomiasis knowledge levels. Paired t-test and independent t-tests were conducted to test the change in knowledge assimilation at the 5% significance level. Our findings show that health education interventions significantly improved knowledge on schistosomiasis among school children (P < 0.001). At post-intervention, the mean score of the whole sample increased to 15,6/35, from a baseline score of 6,5/35. However, there was no significant difference in the post-intervention mean scores of infographics and edutainment interventions. In order to improve schistosomiasis research uptake among school-aged children, health education interventions such as edutainment and infographics can be effective in making the children assimilate schistosomiasis research findings as it has been shown elsewhere. The number of participants in the intervention and high attrition rate were notable limitations of the study. Future studies may need to invest more resources and use digital-based interventions incorporating both infographics and edutainment on one platform such as a digital device.