Perception and practice of malaria prevention and treatment among mothers in Kuje Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Malaria remains a huge public health problem in Sub-Saharan African countries and accounts for 10% of its disease burden even though it is both preventable and curable.
Aim: To assess the knowledge of malaria and practices related to its prevention and treatment among the women of Kuje Area Council in the FCT.
Methods: It was a comparative community intervention study conducted among 232 mothers/ caregivers of under-five children selected through a two staged sampling technique by balloting in Kuje and Rubochi community in Kuje Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory.
Result: At baseline only 1.8% in the intervention group had good knowledge of the cause of malaria while 90.2% had fair knowledge which improved significantly (p=0.013) after the intervention. Good knowledge of the preventive measures was also poor (5.4%) in the intervention group but increased significantly after 5 months of intervention. However, the control group showed no change. Most mothers used Chloroquine to treat malaria in both the intervention and control groups. This however declined from 72.2% to 53.6% in the intervention group.
Conclusion: Mothers of children under five in Kuje had poor knowledge of the cause of malaria and its prevention method, and were not using the recommended drug by the Federal Government of Nigeria (ACTs) for the treatment of uncomplicated malaria. However adequate health education to women especially in the language they understood effectively increased their knowledge and improved the practice of malaria treatment.

Key words: Perception, knowledge, malaria, mothers, under-five children