Effect of Health Education through Community Leaders on Increase Utilization of Households Regarding LLINs in Intervention and Control Villages of New Halfa Locality-Kassala State (2017-2020)

Abstract

The long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLIN) are effective against prevention of malaria and its utilization has been proven to save lives. Despite the mass distribution of LLIN, Nigeria remains the country with the highest malaria burden in Africa. . The current study aimed to assess the effect of Health Education through Community leaders on increased knowledge of Households Regarding malaria control, treatment and prevention in intervention and control villages of New Halfa Locality-Kassala State (2017-2020). Randomized community trials (Controlled intervention study) in New Halfa locality among two communities were randomly assigned to intervention group which receive health education messages regarding the use of LLINs and control group where there is no health education. Standard Questionnaire was use to collect data from the head of household at each village. The information collected should include the owner and using LLINs, distributed to household. The observation the conditions of LLINs. This Questionnaire was done with committee for integrated vector management - Federal Ministry of Health and WHO. The major source of information was TV in control (23.2%) and intervention villages (22.8%) with no significant difference, p> 0.05. There was no significant difference between intervention and control regarding sleeping under net last night (p=.87). The proportion of households slept under nets was not significantly slightly increased in intervention villages (51.9%) compared to control villages (48.1%). The most reasons for not sleeping under nets in control and intervention villages was significantly were no mosquito, no need, hot weather, bad feeling, owner absence and other reasons not mentioned. The frequency distribution of number of bed nets per household. The number of bed nets per household in control villages was found to be 3.7(1.9%) during survey I , 3.1 (1.5%) during survey П and 3.2 (1.6%) during the survey Ш with mean of 3.2 (1.6%). However, the number of bed nets in intervention villages during surveyI , survey П, survey were found 3.7 (1.9%), 3.2 (1.4%) and 2.9 (1.4%) respectively with mean of 3.3 (1.7%). The number of households in control group during survey I was 2541 (44.8%), survey П 1838 (32.4%) and during survey Ш 1300 (22.9%). While the number of households in intervention villages during survey I 2526 (41.8%), survey П 1997 (33.1%) and during survey Ш was 1514 (25.1%). The ownership of bed nets was 100% in control village during surveyI, survey П and survey Ш, but the ownership was slightly decreased in intervention villages during survey I (99.4%) and during survey Ш (99.6%). Regarding use of nets, the use of bed nets during survey I in control villages was found high 70.8% compared to intervention villages (64.1%) while remarkable increased in bed nets use during survey П (82%) and survey Ш ( 55.8%) in intervention villages compared to control villages (74.8%), (47%) respectively. This may be due to health education packages. It can be concluded that the overall knowledge was fair in the present study. This could be attributed to the media campaign sessions during net distribution and to the role of community leaders in these campaigns. Also in other words this study has demonstrated the effectiveness of health education as vital tool for improving the knowledge of malaria and utilization of LLINs.