Dikir Farmasi: folk songs for health education

Abstract

In an effort to enhance public awareness, we develop Dikir Farmasi as an innovative approach to deliver health information. Dikir Farmasi combines the elements of dikir barat (a type of traditional folk song rhythm) and traditional sketches which are popular in the state of Kelantan, Malaysia. These sketches and dikir barat rhythmic songs, with lyrics touch on issues such as drug abuse and regulation are presented in an entertaining and humorous way. Health promotion messages are disseminated using Dikir Farmasi in the form of compact disks, video compact disks, stage performance, exhibition, social media, printed media (signboard, brochure and flyer).

Keywords:

• Traditional songs
• sketches
• health promotion
• pharmacy practice
• drug information
• public health

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by Pharmaceutical Services Division, Ministry of Health [100-RMI/GOV 16/6/2 (18/2015)] and Academic and Research Assimilation grants [600-RMI/DANA 5/3/ARAS (46/2015)]. The authors would like to express their gratitude to Ministry of Health, Ministry of Higher Education and Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia for financial support for this research. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. We would like to thank Dr Jonathan Richardson (Academic Research Editors) for his intellectual input and editing.