Health Empowerment Program among Security Personnel in A Public University

Abstract

The shift in the national health focus from curative towards prevention and wellness has sustained the importance of health-promoting activities to be conducted. In dealing with various occupational health risk factors and hazards, and frontlines occupational factors, seemed likely the security personnel needed to be provided with occupational health-related information. Thus, three series of health empowerment program among security personnel in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah was conducted. The scores obtained by every participant before and after each series were compared. The three series of health empowerment program were conducted in three consecutive weeks which involved pre and post evaluation of the knowledge, attitude and practice elements of three domains of topics, which were Occupational Safety and Health awareness, noncommunicable and communicable diseases. Data analysis was conducted by using SPSS version 29 and a paired T-test was conducted to determine the mean score outcomes and its significant differences. There were significant differences in the pre and post mean score outcomes of knowledge and attitude elements in the series of noncommunicable diseases and practice elements in the series of communicable diseases. These findings highlighted the still ongoing trend of noncommunicable diseases as the main killer diseases, and the correlation of ongoing epidemic trends of communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis, AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, worldwide. Therefore, it was hoped that health risks could be minimized and working performances could be alleviated through the implementation of health empowerment program.