MJM, Vol 70 Supplement 1 September 2015
The awareness, knowledge and acceptance among KEMAS
personnel towards the KOSPEN programme in Southern Zone, Malaysia
Institute for Public Health, Ministry of Health, Kuala Lumpur
ABSTRACT
Introduction: The Ministry of Health had initiated a national programme known as “KOSPEN” to study the prevalence of Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and its risk factors among the population. The aim of this study is to assess the awareness, knowledge and acceptance of KOSPEN programme among Community Development Department (KEMAS) personnel in Southern Zone, Malaysia.
Methods: The cross-sectional study was conducted between October and mid December 2014. The study used validated self-administered questionnaires to collect data from the 2375 KEMAS staff from the state of Johor, Malacca and Negeri Sembilan. SPSS version 20 was used for data analysis.
Results: The results revealed that only 25.5% of respondents were aware that they were on the KOSPEN committee and 65.7% said that they knew the functions of KEMAS in KOSPEN. 90.8% were aware that their responsibilities included identifying localities for KOSPEN, identifying volunteers (85.7%) and attending KOSPEN training (75.3%). In terms of knowledge, most of them knew the objectives of KOSPEN, such as “KEMAS will add on the value of the programmes and its activities” (84.3%) and “to establish trained health volunteers in the community” (85.9%). They also knew that healthy eating habits (94.7%), active lifestyle (93.4%), body weight management (87.0%), no smoking (86.8%) and health screening (92.2%) were the components of KOSPEN. Majority of the respondents perceived that the components for intervention in the community were good. The highest accepted component was health screening (83.5%), follow by healthy eating habits (82.0%), active lifestyle (80.4%), no smoking habit (76.9%) and body weight management (76.1%).
Conclusion: the awareness, knowledge and acceptance of KOSPEN programme by KEMAS personnel are good. Several measures are currently being carried out to improve and strengthen the implementation of KOSPEN programme such as funding, screening equipment and health education materials.
