Medical students’ knowledge of the epidemiology, prevention, and treatment of malaria in a non-endemic country: Mongolia
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Abstract
Background:
Malaria is a serious infectious disease causing significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. It threatened nearly half the global population and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths in 2015. While Mongolia is a non-endemic country, increasing globalization and human mobility have raised the risk of exposure to malaria. Mongolian citizens traveling abroad and United Nations peacekeepers deployed to endemic regions face significant risks. This highlights the need for the Mongolian medical professionals to be prepared for malaria prevention, diagnosis, and treatment as international mobility grows.
Methods:
A cross-sectional study was conducted among the medical students of Mongolian National University of Medical Sciences (MNUMS). 108 questionnaire surveys were collected from October to November of 2024. Descriptive analysis, chi-square test, and pearson correlation methods in the IBM-SPSS26 program were used for processing the results, and statistically significant differences were evaluated at p<0.05.
Results:
In this study a total of 108 students of MNUMS participated, 19(17.6%) were male and 89(82.4%) were female. Among 108 participants, 38% of them had medium and 60.2% of them observed to be sufficient considering the knowledge of malaria and its preventions, while no participants observed to have a lack of knowledge or a high level of knowledge. The branch schools and the students’ knowledge had a significant correlation (p<0.05).
Conclusions:
The knowledge of medical students regarding the transmission routes, symptoms, and treatment methods of malaria was found to be insufficient. Furthermore, significant variations in knowledge levels were observed among students from different branch schools. To enhance medical students' knowledge of malaria, structured lessons, targeted training sessions, and awareness events should be systematically planned and implemented.
Article Details
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© Journal of Asian Medical Students’ Association (JAMSA). Released under a Creative Commons license.
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