A household survey to assess community knowledge, attitude and practices on malaria in a rural population of Northern India

Abstract

Introduction:An extensive search on PubMed reveals very little in terms of evidence regarding the current knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAP) of the population in general and rural population, in particular, in this part of the country. Therefore, a study was conducted with the aim to assess the communities’ knowledge of malaria transmission, recognition of signs and symptoms, treatment seeking.Materials and Methods:A stratified two-stage design was used to conduct a house-to-house survey using a semi-structured questionnaire in RS Pura block of Jammu District of Jammu and Kashmir State in North India.Results:A total of 300 households were included in the study. However, data on 4 households was found to be incomplete at the time of analysis and, therefore, were excluded. Out of 296 study participants interviewed 65.5% were males, while 34.5% females. All of the study participants (100%) had heard of malaria, and the main source of their information was television/newspaper. 92.5% of the study population considered malaria to be a serious health problem, thus reflecting their attitude to the disease. Regarding practices, 71.6% of the study participants preferred going to doctors at government hospitals for malaria treatment, and 56% were willing to seek medical help in <24 h in case of a child has a febrile episode.Conclusions:Results revealed that KAP among respondents were reasonably good and key sociocultural, and related indicators need to be identified as a part of malaria elimination strategy.

Household knowledge and practices concerning malaria and indoor residual spraying in an endemic area earmarked for malaria elimination in Iran

“…This finding is consistent with findings in other studies from different malaria endemic regions around the world which indicates that Community Health Workers are frequently in contact with people [ 21 , 25 , 26 ]. This is in contrast to findings from a recent study conducted in Saudi Arabia, India and Uganda that reported the social media as the primary source of malaria information [ 20 , 27 , 28 ]. Access to Community Health Workers and communication facilities had previously been reported to play an important role in prevention and control of malaria [ 29 ].…”

Knowledge, attitude and practice towards malaria among people attending in Mekaneeyesus primary hospital, South Gondar, Northwestern Ethiopia: A cross-sectional study.

“…This observation supports ndings of another study conducted in Tanzania, which reported that more than 80% of school children had knowledge on malaria transmission (Sumari et al, 2016). This nding is comparable with the report from the study in Swaziland (Hlongwana et al, 2009), Northwest Tanzania (Mazigo et al, 2010), India (Mahesh et al, 2014), Northern India (Gupta et al, 2016) and Mexico (Rodriguez et al, 2003). This situation is higher compared with that reported by Legesse et al (2017), which was observed that about three forth (75.1%) of respondents had correct understanding of mode of transmission of malaria,which also corroborate studies in Nigeria in which 74.3% of the study participants has mentioned mosquito bite as mode of malaria transmission (Singh et al, 2014).…”

“…Knowledge of mosquito behavior (resting and breeding places and feeding time) is important to take appropriate malaria preventive actions and for the proper use of ITNs. Observations regarding breeding sites of mosquitoes were 265(67.9%), 80(20.5%), 41(10.5%) and 4(1.0%) of the study participants mentioned that stagnant water, tall grass, bushes and running water respectively.The results are consistent with some other studies, which have Knowledge regarding breeding and resting places of mosquitoes in India (Gupta et al, 2016) and in Shashogo District, Southern Ethiopia (Fuge et al, 2015). This is low when compared with the report from the study conducted in Tepi Town, Sheka Zone, Southwestern Ethiopia, most of the community members were aware that the mosquito breeds in stagnant water which is (96.4%) (Haile et al, 2015).…”

Socio-demographic and household attributes may not necessarily influence malaria: evidence from a cross sectional study of households in an urban slum setting of Chennai, India

“…Implementation of culturally appropriate, sustainable, and effective interventions is crucial for the success of vector control strategies. Since, India stands next to Africa in the number of malaria cases with an observed increase of cases in urban areas, stringent measures of surveillance followed by control and follow up strategies have to be executed and monitored to reduce the disease burden [ 24 , 25 ]. The present survey revealed many factors, which influenced the malaria incidence/prevalence in the study site in a significant way.…”