The Knowledge on Scabies among Students in a Pesantren in East Jakarta, Before and After Health Education

Scabies is a skin disease commonly found in overcrowded and poor hygiene environment. The purpose of this study was to determine the level of knowledge of students in pesantren X, East Jakarta, before and after conducting health education on scabies. The study design was a pre-post study and the data were taken on March 8, 2014. All students who came during the data collectionare the research subjects. Data was collected through a questionnaire consisting of 25 questions about the etiology, clinical symptoms, treatment, transmission, and prevention of scabies. The data were processed with SPSS version 20 and was tested with marginal homogeneity. The results showed that of 104 respondents, prior to health education, most students have a poor level of knowledge on the topic of etiology (68.3%), clinical symptoms (64.2%), treatment (51.9%), prevention (39,4%), and transmission (27.9%). After a health eduvation lecture, more than 50% of students showed a good level of knowledge on every topic on scabies (ranging from 65.4% and the highest 82.7%) while the students with poor level of knowledge on every topic ranged from 4.8%9.6%. Marginal homogeneity test showed significant differences in knowledge before and after health education (p<0.01). In conclusion, health education is effective in increasing knowledge about scabies.Keywords: scabies, knowledge, pesantren students, health education