Parents’ and caregivers’ attitudes towards malaria, and health care seeking practices for their febrile children in a hospital in north-eastern Nigeria

Abstract

Despite the very high burden of malaria among children in Borno state, the proportion of those who receive standard treatment has been very low. This study aimed to determine malaria knowledge, attitude towards prevention, and health care seeking behaviours of parents or caregivers of children presenting with fever at the paediatric clinic of a secondary-level hospital in Maiduguri, Borno state, Nigeria. A cross-sectional study design was used to obtain information from the respondents. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire, from the parents or caregivers of children presented to the Paediatric clinic with history of fever, and analysed in SPSS. A total of 331 respondents were finally recruited into the study. The ages of the children ranged from one to fourteen years. Some of them (15.3%) were internally displaced persons (IDPs). As many as 90.7% and 91.9% of the respondents believed that malaria is a life-threatening illness, and ITNs could prevent malaria, respectively. Less than a half of them (42.3%) had immediately brought their children to the hospital once they detected the fever. At the hospital, only 202 (60.7%) of the children had had malaria parasite test done on them, of which 89.1% tested positive. Permanent residents were more likely to promptly take their children to the hospital, one they detected fever, compared to IDPs (Χ²=12.401, df =1, p=0.002). There is the need for promoting early presentation of febrile children to health centres, and also promoting routine malaria tests for febrile persons.