Abstract:
The study examined the knowledge and attitude of secondary school students towards sickle cell disease in Nsukka Education Zone of Enugu State. Nine research questions were formulated to guide the study. The design of the study was descriptive survey. The instrument for data collection was an achievement test and a questionnaire. A total of 420 students in the senior secondary school were sampled using multi-stage sampling technique and at each stage, random sampling technique was used for the study. The data collected was statistically analyzed using mean and standard deviation. Some of the major findings of the study were that the secondary school students had an above average knowledge of sickle cell disease, have positive attitude towards sickle cell disease as well as individuals suffering from the disease,that senior secondary school students are willing to go for premarital sickle cell counselling and screening, that the attitude of students towards sickle cell disease was not influenced by gender and location, and that the knowledge of senior secondary school students on sickle cell disease was not influence by school location and gender either. The study recomends that more awareness programmes on sickle cell disease as well as seminars and workshops on premarital sickle cell counselling and screening should be provided by both the government, professional personnels and schools to fully remedy the problem of sickle cell disease among the populace.
