Perception of causes of malaria and treatment-seeking behaviour of nursing mothers in a rural community

Abstract

Objective: Maternal health care workers' recognition of malaria, its transmission and treatment of children's fever at community level.

Design: Randomised sampling of households with children of 0-5 years.

Setting: Rural community in a forest zone.

Subjects: Fifty-five households at Ijegemo village, Ogun state, Nigeria were sampled and questionnaires administered to 200 mothers/care workers of children within the age group 0-5 years. Blood smears were obtained from finger pricks and level of parasitemia with malaria parasites determined for each child.

Main outcome measures: Interactions with the women during the survey empowered them with accurate knowledge of malaria recognition, transmission and management of children's fever at the community level.

Results: Forty per cent of the respondents did not know the exact cause of malaria, 20% attributed the cause to sunlight, 16.5% to mosquitoes, 12.5% to poor hygiene, 4% to palm oil intake, 4% to blood shortage and 6% to a hot body. Of respondents 85.5% identified stagnant water as breeding site of mosquitoes but could not correlate it with the occurrence of malaria fever. Herbal concoction was the first treatment action. Some of these herbs are listed in the text. Plasmodium falciparum alone was identified in all blood smears. Children at two to three years of age were recorded with the highest percentage (67.5%) of parasite-positive cases with a mean value of 1237.04 +/- 2113.19.

Conclusion: This study highlights a critical need for targeting health messages towards poorly educated women in order to empower them with the knowledge and resources to recognise and manage their children's health problems.