KAP of the Community towards Malaria Prevention and Control Options in Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Malaria is one of the public health challenges in Ethiopia. Although the disease is endemic in many parts of the country, the knowledge and practice about disease prevention and control is far from perfect, and misconceptions and malpractices are common. So this study is designed to assess the level of KAP of the community towards malaria prevention and control.

Methodology: A cross sectional study triangulated with qualitative method was conducted in Amhara National Regional State.. The data was collected into SPSS version 16.0 for analysis. Bivariate and multivariate analysis was done to see the association between outcome and explanatory variables. For the qualitative part, FGD participants were selected based on predetermined criteria. After transcribing and translating the collected data, it is organized in to themes.

Result: A total of 864 and 56 in 7 groups were participated in quantitative and qualitative studies, respectively. This study revealed that 37.6% of the study participants mentioned fever as symptom of malaria. The acceptance rate of IRS as malaria control and prevention method is 5.37%. However, about 42.7% of the study participants’ houses had been sprayed in the last one year.  From the general population, 26.4% of the participants used ITN as malaria prevention and control method. Among febrile children in the last one year, 28.4% were taken to modern health care institutions for treatment.  From the total, 47% have good practice towards malaria prevention and control.    

Conclusion: KAP of the community towards malaria prevention and control are at low level to. Therefore, emphasize  must be give on  educating children care givers/mothers to recognize fever as symptom of malaria and to take febrile children to modern health institutions,  increasing ITN utilization and IRS acceptance rate by the community.