Abstract:
Background: The Ministry of Health in Sri Lanka has reported over 80,000 dengue cases
and over 200 deaths from January to July of 2017.This is in 15 districts including Batticaloa
district in Sri Lanka where monsoon rains most heavily affected with failures to clear
mosquito breeding grounds primarily in urban and suburban areas. The study gives an
insight into the surveillance, prevention and control of an infectious disease as well as
evaluating how it impacts public health in general.
Objectives: This project aims to bring an understanding of the individual, familial and
contextual risk and protective factors for dengue infection and the consequences of dengue
contraction from an infectious disease epidemiological perspective.
Methodology: Twenty dengue prevalence villages in Batticaloa district were chosen for the
study as one of the high occurrence locations for dengue. The sampling method is snowball purposive and random sampling. The present study was done by giving questionnaires to
both dengue infected and non-infected people and had direct interview with the same and
health professionals. This study examined the individual, family and community factors
placing individuals at greater and lesser risk of contracting dengue and experiencing its
consequences between dengue patients (n=213) and non-infected people (n=100). The study
informed us which of the hypothesized factors are significant predictors of dengue risk,
resilience and consequences of contraction.
Results and conclusions: How the environmental, sociobehavioral risks and protective
factors influencing dengue infection and implication were found from this study. Individual
socioeconomic and demographic characteristics (gender, education, race), physical
contextual factors (urbanity/rurality, clustering of houses, within-home density, distance to
stagnant water) and social contextual factors (familyism, collectivism, community
prevention) influence dengue infection directly and indirectly through cognitive-behavioral
processes (knowledge and preventive behavior). Government prevention services directly
reduce dengue infection. Psychological consequences of dengue contraction were identified
that were dengue contributes to elevation of depressive and anxiety symptoms.
