Development and evaluation of effective health education module against respiratory tract infections among Malaysian Hajj pilgrims

The intervention in this study is the Hajj Health education module for the prevention of respiratory tract infections via smartphone applications and printed booklets specifically designed for study. The name of the intervention application is "Hajj Health Education Module". It is available in the google playstore by searching the keywords "Hajj HEM". The application intervention is developed and designed as self-learning module that can be downloaded from google playstore and operated by the user continuously at any time. They are presented by the researcher to the pilgrims in the intervention during Hajj orientation course organized by the private Hajj company. The splash screen of the smartphone application is projected on powerpoint to the group of participants at the beginning of the 2-days course to download. The application intervention is produced to provide details of the preventive practices as recommended by the WHO and CDC. Compliance of the application by the user will be tracked through formative assessment. The content of the application was summarized into a booklet to cover preventive practices towards respiratory tract infections before departure to Hajj, during Hajj pilgrimage and after returning to home country from Hajj. The intervention covers areas such as the mandatory and recommended vaccines, the use of facemask, proper hand hygiene, cough etiquette, social distancing and crowd avoidance. Two private Hajj companies were selected based on the high number of customers that are more than our required sample size. One company will serve as the intervention and the other company as the control group. Participants were asked for informed consent and invited to participate in the study.