Abstract Body

Background and purpose: Little is known about the extent to which Lebanese travelers seek pre-travel advice. This study aims to determine the level of knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of Lebanese travelers towards travel health.

Methods: A cross-sectional study over a period of 1 week using a self-administered questionnaire at Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut in January 2020, before the Covid pandemic reached the country. It included 615 Lebanese travellers.

Results: Travelers were predominantly men (68%), and 80% had a high educational level. The majority were travelling to the Middle East/Gulf countries (36%) and sub-Saharan Africa (35%). The big majority (75%) sought general information about their travel destination, and the sources of information were mainly family and friends (44%), and the internet (36.7%). Around the third (33%) sought medical advice, mostly from physicians (19%). Only 2.4% sought it from travel clinics. No medical concerns was the main reason not to get medical advice (42.9%). Half of travelers were planning to participate in outdoor activities, but most won’t use protection to mosquitoes. Only 15.8% of travelers sought pre-travel medical advice at least one month before; this behavior was found to be associated with high risk destinations, stay length, travelling for religion/mission, participating in outdoor activities, visiting rural areas, and health insurance status.

Conclusions: Lebanese travelers had less than optimal levels of knowledge, attidues and practices towards travel health. This highlights the need to develop specialized travel medicine services and educational materials enhancing the public's travel health perceptions. A similar study evaluating the impact of covid-19 would be of great benefit.