Malaria and antimalarial therapy: Knowledge, attitude and practice in a rural-urban community in South-South Nigeria

Abstract

Globally, malaria disease is a widespread occurrence especially in many parts of Africa. The goal of therapy for malaria is to lessen morbidity and mortality and encourage rational drug use to prevent or repress the emergence of resistance to antimalarial drugs. Communal awareness through proper education by healthcare professionals is key in the total eradication of malaria. We aimed at evaluating the knowledge, attitude and practice of rural-urban dwellers of Abraka community, Delta State, Nigeria towards antimalarial therapy. A community-based cross-sectional survey was carried out using questionnaires among 600 dwellers of Abraka community from February to April 2019, and the data obtained was presented as percentage using descriptive statistics. The distribution showed that majority of the respondents were students 378 (63%), between the ages of 18-25; 33% were males while 67% were females and 81% of all respondents had tertiary education. All respondents reported to have heard about malarial and knew the common protection methods against malaria. About 97% use drugs in the treatment of malaria, especially the antimalarial drugs combination therapy. In summary, this study reveals that there is a high knowledge of malaria infection and a positive attitude towards malaria treatment by rural-urban dwellers of Abraka community, Delta State, Nigeria.