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Barriers to accessing malaria treatment amongst school-age children in rural Malawi
BACKGROUND: Over the last two decades, many countries have moved from malaria control toward malaria elimination. However, some sub-Saharan African countries, like Malawi, have recently seen a reversal in malaria control progress with reported increases in confirmed malaria cases. This may be the re...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10481490/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37674177 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12936-023-04695-z |
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author | Mhango, Patani Malata, Monica Patricia Chipeta, Effie Sixpence, Alick Taylor, Terrie E. Wilson, Mark L. Cohee, Lauren M. Mangani, Charles Mathanga, Don P. |
author_facet | Mhango, Patani Malata, Monica Patricia Chipeta, Effie Sixpence, Alick Taylor, Terrie E. Wilson, Mark L. Cohee, Lauren M. Mangani, Charles Mathanga, Don P. |
author_sort | Mhango, Patani |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Over the last two decades, many countries have moved from malaria control toward malaria elimination. However, some sub-Saharan African countries, like Malawi, have recently seen a reversal in malaria control progress with reported increases in confirmed malaria cases. This may be the result of inadequate access to effective malaria control interventions by key population groups that perpetuate transmission. This study aimed to assess the barriers to accessing malaria treatment among school-aged children (SAC) in Malawi. METHODS: A qualitative study was conducted between September and October 2020, where data were gathered in rural Malawi using free-listing interviews, key-informant interviews, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions. Purposively sampled participants included SAC, parents of SAC, health workers and key stakeholders at community and district levels. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were organized using NVivo 12 software and analysed using the thematic method. RESULTS: The study recruited 252 participants, with 156 being SAC, equally divided between boys and girls. Health system barriers to malaria treatment included long waiting hours and queues at clinics, frequent stock-outs of medical supplies, and travel time to the facility. Provider barriers included negative attitude and limited service hours. Individual and cultural barriers included fear of malaria tests and beliefs associating witchcraft as the best treatment for malaria. In addition, COVID-19-related barriers included the inability to follow preventive measures, a shift in focus from malaria to COVID-19, and fear of contracting COVID-19 and/or being tested for COVID-19 at the facility. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows most of the barriers to accessing malaria treatment among SAC are similar to those experienced by other population groups. Furthermore, COVID-19 adversely affected SAC’s access to treatment. Interventions that support SAC access to prompt diagnosis and treatment are urgently needed to improve the effective control of malaria. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10481490 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-104814902023-09-07 Barriers to accessing malaria treatment amongst school-age children in rural Malawi Mhango, Patani Malata, Monica Patricia Chipeta, Effie Sixpence, Alick Taylor, Terrie E. Wilson, Mark L. Cohee, Lauren M. Mangani, Charles Mathanga, Don P. Malar J Research BACKGROUND: Over the last two decades, many countries have moved from malaria control toward malaria elimination. However, some sub-Saharan African countries, like Malawi, have recently seen a reversal in malaria control progress with reported increases in confirmed malaria cases. This may be the result of inadequate access to effective malaria control interventions by key population groups that perpetuate transmission. This study aimed to assess the barriers to accessing malaria treatment among school-aged children (SAC) in Malawi. METHODS: A qualitative study was conducted between September and October 2020, where data were gathered in rural Malawi using free-listing interviews, key-informant interviews, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions. Purposively sampled participants included SAC, parents of SAC, health workers and key stakeholders at community and district levels. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were organized using NVivo 12 software and analysed using the thematic method. RESULTS: The study recruited 252 participants, with 156 being SAC, equally divided between boys and girls. Health system barriers to malaria treatment included long waiting hours and queues at clinics, frequent stock-outs of medical supplies, and travel time to the facility. Provider barriers included negative attitude and limited service hours. Individual and cultural barriers included fear of malaria tests and beliefs associating witchcraft as the best treatment for malaria. In addition, COVID-19-related barriers included the inability to follow preventive measures, a shift in focus from malaria to COVID-19, and fear of contracting COVID-19 and/or being tested for COVID-19 at the facility. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows most of the barriers to accessing malaria treatment among SAC are similar to those experienced by other population groups. Furthermore, COVID-19 adversely affected SAC’s access to treatment. Interventions that support SAC access to prompt diagnosis and treatment are urgently needed to improve the effective control of malaria. BioMed Central 2023-09-06 /pmc/articles/PMC10481490/ /pubmed/37674177 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12936-023-04695-z Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Mhango, Patani Malata, Monica Patricia Chipeta, Effie Sixpence, Alick Taylor, Terrie E. Wilson, Mark L. Cohee, Lauren M. Mangani, Charles Mathanga, Don P. Barriers to accessing malaria treatment amongst school-age children in rural Malawi |
title | Barriers to accessing malaria treatment amongst school-age children in rural Malawi |
title_full | Barriers to accessing malaria treatment amongst school-age children in rural Malawi |
title_fullStr | Barriers to accessing malaria treatment amongst school-age children in rural Malawi |
title_full_unstemmed | Barriers to accessing malaria treatment amongst school-age children in rural Malawi |
title_short | Barriers to accessing malaria treatment amongst school-age children in rural Malawi |
title_sort | barriers to accessing malaria treatment amongst school-age children in rural malawi |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10481490/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37674177 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12936-023-04695-z |
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