Evaluation of the Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Asthma among the University Students in Bangladesh: A Cross-Sectional Study
Keywords:
Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Analysis of Asthma, Asthma in Bangladesh, Asthma Management, Survey on AsthmaAbstract
Background: Asthma is a common long-term lung disease, and university students are a key group for messages about how to prevent and manage it on their own.
Methods: From April 2024 to August 2025, an online survey was conducted among 1,325 undergraduate and graduate students (538 male and 787 female) from 19 universities with a structured questionnaire consisting of 48 questions (15 about knowledge, 8 about attitude, and 10 about practice). Knowledge is rated from 0 to 15, with 0 being bad and 15 being good. 5-point Likert scales with set cut-offs are used to analyse attitude (8–40) and practice (10–50) scores. Welch's t-test/ANOVA or Mann–Whitney U are used to compare groups. Pearson correlation is used to examine relationships between KAP dimensions, and SEM is used to examine predictors (two-sided p<0.05).
Results: The mean (±SD) scores are 12.02±3.41 for knowledge, 31.12±8.22 for attitude, and 43.12±8.95 for practice. Overall, 89.7% have good knowledge, 69.9% have a good attitude, and 88.0% have proactive practice towards asthma. There is a positive relationship between the KAP domains, with the strongest link between knowledge and practice (r=0.428, p<0.001). In analyses with more than one variable, being older is linked to having less knowledge, while being in a higher academic year and being interested in a free inhaler-technique workshop are linked to having more knowledge. Knowledge is also linked to both attitude and practice.
Conclusion: Most Bangladeshi university students have a good understanding of asthma and how to deal with it. Skills-based campus programs, especially those that teach people how to use inhalers, may help fill in the gaps and improve asthma self-management.
J MEDICINE 2026; 27(2): 102-113
56
53
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
