View point of municipal elementary school teachers in Araçatuba, SP, Brazil, about parasitical diseases

The purpose of this survey was going to investigate teachers’ knowledge degree about the major parasitical diseases and to verify after lectures, the administered content assimilation. They were going interviewed 60 educators of 18 municipal elementary schools from Araçatuba, SP, about parasitical diseases. After this phase, short lectures on infections by helminths, ectoparasites and protozoa were delivered. Soon after, they were going repeated the same referring questions to the subject for half the involved people. As regards the involved teachers’ school level, 6.66% had graduated from high school only (teachership school), 8.33% had not graduated from college, or were still college undergraduates, and 86.00% had already graduated from college. The descriptive statistical analysis revealed that, before the lectures execution, 93.33%, 46.66% and 16.66% of the teachers answered that they had had students with pediculosis, helminthosis and scabiosis cases respectively, so that the first one is the most understood affection by the teachers, as noticed in this survey. Only 61.66% of the teachers knew how to differentiate diseases of the taeniasis-cysticercosis complex. After the explanation by the extensionist, 96.66% managed to differentiate these two diseases. Among the teachers interviewed for the survey, regarding knowledge on the major way of toxoplasmosis transmission, 86.66% incriminated felines, 70.00% quoted pidgeons, only one teacher mentioned about meat products and 28.33% did not know anything about the topic. After the lecture, as for the ways of transmission, 93.33% understood cats’ role regarding the disease and 96.66% understood the topic concerning meat products. As regards visceral leishmaniosis, 68.33% of the interviewed teachers referred to the canine species as the transmitter of the disease and 91.66% incriminated the flebotomine vector. In the after-lecture investigation, it was observed that 100% of the teachers did not point to dogs concerning direct transmission of infection by Leishmania spp. The data obtained in the survey made it possible to infer that there is a need for implementing awareness-raising programs for sanitary education directed to teaching basic concepts on identification and prophylaxis of these parasitical diseases at elementary schools