PHS36 Cost Drivers of Household Treatment of Presumptive Malaria in Home-Based Management of Malaria in Ejisu-Juaben Municipality

Abstract

Home-Based Management of Malaria (HBMM) is one of the key strategies to reduce the burden of malaria for vulnerable populations in endemic countries. The strategy seeks to allow caregivers to have immediate health care from some selected and trained community members. The study sought to identify the cost drivers of presumptive malaria treatment and cost of seeking care from the community medicine distributors (CMDs). A cross-sectional study was done in the Ejisu-Juaben Municipality in the Ashanti Region. The study involved randomly selected 400 caregivers, (10) health staff and (90) community-based medicine distributors (CMDs). Structured questionnaires were employed to collect these data and data was analyzed into descriptive statistics with SPSS version 17 software.Test for associations were done at 95% confidence interval. With the assumption that transport cost and food cost were zero (0) in HBMM. The results reveals that, the cost of treatment of malaria for children between 6-11 months ranged from GH₵P0.01-1.00 (± 0.19 STD), while children between the ages of 12-24 months ranged from GH₵1.00-1.50 (±0.04 STD) and 36-59 months ranged from GH₵2.00-3.00 (±0.30 STD). Generally cost was described as affordable and drivers of treatment cost were level of severity of the illness, distance to the homes, time spent in traveling and in the consumer’s homes as well as the number of population within the CMD’s catchment area.Cost incurred in accessing HBMM treatment was affordable to caregivers Drivers of treatment cost in HBMM varies from the caregivers and care seekers.