Kota Bharu Centre

Personnel

• Dr. Mazidah Abdul Rasid
• Dr. Mohd Hashim Mohd Hassan
• Dr. Ariffin Nasir
• Kol. (B) Dr. Wan Pauzi Wan Ibrahim
• Professor Ban Seng Quah
• Dr. Abdul Razif Abdul Razak

Why was this centre selected for ISAAC?

Kota Bharu, situated in the northeastern part of peninsula Malaysia is the state capital of Kelantan. We were invited to participate in ISAAC by the national coordinator Associate Professor Jessie de Bruyne. As there were no studies on the prevalence of asthma and allergic diseases from this region, we were very enthusiastic to be part of ISAAC. It was also an opportunity to compare the prevalence of the asthma, eczema and allergic rhinitis in Kota Bharu with the more affluent and urban population in the west coast of the peninsular. The demographics of this state is also very different from that in the west coast as 95% of the population are ethnic Malays.

Our experience of ISAAC

In this multiracial country, a major problem was preparing the ISAAC questionnaire in different languages. As the majority of the population in Kota Bharu are Malays, the ISAAC questionnaire was translated to Malay which is also the national language. The translation was successfully done with the help of Dr. Abdul Razif along with the assistance of language teachers from the university. Several meetings were held with the national coordinator to discuss the Malay questionnaire so that a similar questionnaire could be used in all ISAAC centres in Malaysia. We also needed a Mandarin questionnaire to be used for the few Chinese schools in Kota Bharu district. But this was a minor problem as we adopted the Mandarin questionnaire from our colleagues in Singapore.

Permission from the Kelantan State Director of Education was obtained to conduct the surveys in the schools. We did not face any barriers during our visits to the schools and the teachers assisted by arranging a suitable venue for the video questionnaire. Logistically, it was not a difficult survey to carry out as the permission from the State Director of Education ensured that the students and teachers fulfilled our requests. This might explain the high rate of response of our questionnaires. The response rate for the written questionnaires was also surprisingly high which could be a reflection of the interest of parents.

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Universiti Sains Malaysia for providing research grants, and also the Ministry of Education, Malaysia, for granting permission to perform both Phase One and Three surveys among school children in Kota Bharu district. We are also indebted to all children, parents and school staff who participated in the surveys.