Education program and hemoglobinopathy typing study in the high school of Hatay-Samandag region

Introduction and objectives: According to World Health Organization, the incidence of thalassemias and abnormal hemoglobins 5.1 % and there are approximately 266 million carriers in the world. Incidence of Hemoglobin S is 0.37-0.60 % in Turkey, it has been determined at the range of 3-44 % in some regions of Cukurova. The incidence of thalassemia has been reported as 2.1 % in Turkey. In this study, it was aimed that to determine and improvement of level of knowledge about hemoglobinopathies in the students of Samandag.Material and methods: A questionnaire was applied to determine the level of knowledge of students before and after a half day long education program. Hematological parameters such as total blood count, hemoglobin types, and HbA2 and HbF levels were measured in blood samples collected from these students. DNA isolation were made from cases with thalassemia and abnormal hemoglobin, mutation genotyping of these cases were carried out with ARMS, RFLP, and also microarray methodologies.Results: 32 cases of Sickle cell anemia carrier and 2 cases of HBSS were determined in the tree high school of Samandag region. 6 cases were considered as Hb AE. ß thalassemia carrying was determined in the 5 cases, 3 of them had IVS I-110 mutation, 1 of them had Cd 39 mutation, and mutation of a case cannot be determined. 34 cases were examined for ?-thalassemia mutations, 8 of them had ?3,7 mutation and 2 of them had ? ? MED I mutation. Correct response rates of pre and post questionnaires were compared statistically.Conclusions: Positive effect of education about the topic on students was observed. The parts of education about preventability of hemoglobinopathies were considered as insufficient so the parts of presentation which related to this topic were revisited. Blood samples of volunteers were analyzed and hemoglobin identifications were done. The results of analyses were reported individually for each case. The effected volunteers were informed about the mutation and their importance.Keywords: Abnormal hemoglobin, Thalassemia, Molecular Analyze, Education