Pre-travel Health Advice and Medical Services by Healthcare Professionals – A Literature Review

Abstract

Introduction:Travel medicine is an emerging branch of medicine concerned with the well-beings of travellers before, during, and after travel. Pre-travel health advice and medical services are important to keep travellers healthy and ensure a safe and pleasant journey by minimising impact of illness and accidents.Objective: This paper serves as a literature review paper on the pre-travel health advice seeking behaviours amongst travellers as well as the pre-travel health advice and medical services provided by the health professionals.Methodology: An extensive online literature search using the search terms of "pre-travel", "health advice", "medical services", and "health professionals" was done on electronic bibliographic databases including PubMed and Scopus supplemented by Google Scholar.Results: Twenty original studies as retrieved from the online databases which fulfilled the inclusion criteria were included in the review. Prevalence of pre-travel advice seeking behaviour is reportedly low in Malaysia (36.8% -40.5%). Studies done amongst pharmacists in Malaysia revealed that the Malaysian pharmacists have been actively involved in providing pre-travel health advice and medical services (76.6% -85%). High percentages of healthcare professionals in Europe and American (68% -94.7%) provide pretravel advice and medical services, followed by 79.5% in Saudi and 44.7% in Qatar. The top 5 topics of health advice most frequently cited were on malaria, travel insurance, sexually transmitted disease/HIV, vaccinations and first aid kit. The average duration spent for pre-travel consultation range from 5 to 30 minutes. Conclusion:Travellers should be educated on the importance of seeking pre-travel advice and vaccinations to raise their awareness. Healthcare practitioners should be well-trained and informed to provide good pre-travel advice and services.