2. Materials and methods
To gather data, a survey was carried out from July 2000
to September 2001 in 11 floodplain villages in two regions
called ‘‘Costa do Canabuoca’’ and ‘‘Costa do Marreca˜ o’’
in Manacapuru District (311803300S, 6013302100W), located
about 80 km west from Manaus, capital of the state of
Amazonas (Fig. 1). Standardized questionnaires were used
to obtain information on variables such as products being
used, general knowledge and attitudes on pesticides
handling, safety and protection strategies and on pesticides
risk perception.
Fourteen pictograms often used in pesticides labeling
were shown to farmers to verify their understanding of
them and how they relate them to product handling. We
met with community leaders and farmers to explain our
research and to request collaboration on data gathering.
From a total of 253 farmers previously identified in a
participatory community appraisal and household survey,
76 were selected randomly and participated voluntarily in
the survey, and all of them signed a consent to participation
form. We also conducted an observational study to
validate the application of the questionnaire; because most
interviews were conducted when smallholders were working,
we were able to observe farmers’ attitudes and
practices.
Mann–Whitney test was used for ordinal or multinomial
qualitative input variables and binomial outcome variables.
w-square test was used for dichotomic variables. An error
of 5% was considered.