Factors Affecting Pediculosis capitis Transmission among Primary School Children

Introduction: Human head lice infest people worldwide and are most prevalent in children. Outbreaks of head lice more commonly affect children 3 to 12 years old, with girls being affected more commonly than boys. The aim is to study the factors affecting transmission of the disease among the school children in villages in Benghazi - Libya.

Patients and Methods: In a cross-sectional study in western region of Benghazi, 556 students in three schools from Alhlys, Alatry and Abofakra regions were enrolled. The ages of children ranged from 6 to 13 years. Data collected include socio-demographic characteristics of the students, sex, age, school and hair were examined individually for head lice infestation in a separate room. Descriptive analysis and Chi-square test was used to determine the statistical significance of p-value ≤ 0.05.

Results: The data were collected on 556 students from the 3 villages: 39.7% from Al-Helys, 28.8% from Al-Tarya and 31.5% from Abofakra regions. The age of children ranged from 6 to13 years. Female children were more than 50%. The mean of family size was 7±2 persons, number of bedroom in houses ranged from 1-5 rooms.. Sharing of personal equipment such as hair comb and linen was reported in 33.5% of families. Pediculosis capitis manifestation was reported in 26.3% of the participants. The prevalence of pediculosis capitis was 19.5% in Al-Helys, 35.6% in Al-Tarya and 26.3% in Bo-Fakra; this difference was statistically significant (p<0.05) . The prevalence of pediculosis capitis in males was 10.2%, while in females was 41.8% , this difference was highly statistically significant (p =0.0001) The highest prevalence of pediculosis capitis was in age of 11 years old (42.9%), followed by age of 10 years old (36.6%). There were no reported cases at the age of 6 and 13 years. There was no effect of parent occupation or education level on pediculosis infestation transmission.

Conclusion: The present study revealed that, Pediculosis capitis was prevalent in school children, more in females. Furthermore pediculosis was higher in certain villages than others.