Abstract
BackgroundFor many years social economic status has been used as an indicator to characterize malaria treatment seeking behaviors of communities and their adherence to malaria control programs. The present study was therefore conducted to assess the influence of household social economic status, knowledge, attitude and practice on treatment seeking behaviors, distance to health facilities and vector control measures in the Lower Moshi area, northern Tanzania.MethodsA cross-sectional household survey was carried out, a quantitative method was used to collect information from the households, and the household socio-economic status was estimated by employing a household asset-based approach. The structured questionnaire also collected information on malaria knowledge, attitudes and treatment seeking behaviors.ResultsA total of 197 (68.8% were female) household heads were interviewed. Distance to the health centers influenced malaria treatment seeking behaviors especially for children (P = 0.001) and the number of visits to the health facilities made by the household members (P = 0.001). The head of the households' level of education had an influence on bed-net retreatment (P < 0.001) and acceptability of larval control programmes (P <0.001). Similarly, a significant association was observed between bed-net retreatment, larval control and occupation of the head of the household .ConclusionDistance to the health centre influenced malaria treatment seeking behaviors, and the number of visits made by the household members. In addition, the education level of the household heads played a role in understanding and in the selection of malaria interventions for the households. Increasing the number of health facilities close to rural areas will improve malaria treatment seeking behavior, case management and hence reduce malaria-associated morbidities, especially in high risk groups.
Highlights
For many years social economic status has been used as an indicator to characterize malaria treatment seeking behaviors of communities and their adherence to malaria control programs
Based on the health reports from the health centre where the majority of the household heads and other community members get their health services, indicates that besides malaria, the area is endemic for other tropical diseases, and coinfections were found to exist (Figure 3). These findings suggest that distance to the health facility from the household influenced malaria treatment seeking behaviour of most of the household heads
Distance to the health centre influenced malaria treatment seeking behaviors and the number of visits made by the household members
Summary
For many years social economic status has been used as an indicator to characterize malaria treatment seeking behaviors of communities and their adherence to malaria control programs. The present study was conducted to assess the influence of household social economic status, knowledge, attitude and practice on treatment seeking behaviors, distance to health facilities and vector control measures in the Lower Moshi area, northern Tanzania. About 95% of the Tanzanian population are at risk of malaria and live in areas characterized by stable malaria transmission [3] In these areas, about 17–20 million clinical episodes of malaria are reported each year and almost 80,000 deaths are attributed to malaria every year [3,4]. The study focused on understanding how the household social economic status, knowledge, attitude and practice influence malaria treatment seeking behaviors and vector control measures in the Lower Moshi area, northern Tanzania
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