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A Household-Based Cross-Sectional Survey of Knowledge, Awareness and Practice Regarding Malaria in Western Area Rural District, Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is a highly endemic area for malaria, and the implementation of the National Malaria Strategic Plan (2016–2020) has reached its midpoint in 2018. To provide more specific guidance for interventions in the future, a household-based cross-sectional survey was conducted to elucidate the kn...

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Autores principales: Wang, Lili, Yin, Jianhai, Zheng, Canjun, Smith, Samuel Juana, Ngegba, Esther, Huang, Xiaoxia, Kamara, Anitta, Chen, Xia, Wang, Xu, Luo, Wei, Kan, Biao
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8012796/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33816430
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.664971
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author Wang, Lili
Yin, Jianhai
Zheng, Canjun
Smith, Samuel Juana
Ngegba, Esther
Huang, Xiaoxia
Kamara, Anitta
Chen, Xia
Wang, Xu
Luo, Wei
Kan, Biao
author_facet Wang, Lili
Yin, Jianhai
Zheng, Canjun
Smith, Samuel Juana
Ngegba, Esther
Huang, Xiaoxia
Kamara, Anitta
Chen, Xia
Wang, Xu
Luo, Wei
Kan, Biao
author_sort Wang, Lili
collection PubMed
description Sierra Leone is a highly endemic area for malaria, and the implementation of the National Malaria Strategic Plan (2016–2020) has reached its midpoint in 2018. To provide more specific guidance for interventions in the future, a household-based cross-sectional survey was conducted to elucidate the knowledge, awareness and practices regarding malaria and malarial control measures among the general public. Three communities (Grafton, Jui, and Kossoh) in the Western Area Rural District that were in close proximity to Sierra Leone's capital city of Freetown were included. Households were randomly selected and interviewed with a structured questionnaire covering malaria infection, diagnosis, treatment and prevention, as well as knowledge of malaria prevention. As a result, a total of 262 qualified questionnaires were included. The average cost for meals per day is ~30,000 Leones in each household. The rate of awareness, indicated by reporting having heard of malaria, was 98.1% (257/262), and 86.6% (227/262) of the respondents knew that mosquito bites are the main route of transmission. In addition, 80.9% (212/262) of the respondents sought health advice or treatment for the illness, and a similar percentage of respondents had been tested for malaria, mostly with rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs). A high demand for long-lasting insecticidal nets (72.1%) matched the serious shortage (61.8%, 162/262), and of the households that reported a lack of nets, 66 had children younger than 5 years old. In conclusion, public awareness of malaria prevention is high, based on this survey, although there was a limited use of preventive measures in these three communities and the malaria burden was still high. Therefore, the public's knowledge of malaria should be sustained and reinforced, and the distribution and use of malaria prevention measures should be promoted to supprt the achievement of the planned objectives.
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spelling pubmed-80127962021-04-02 A Household-Based Cross-Sectional Survey of Knowledge, Awareness and Practice Regarding Malaria in Western Area Rural District, Sierra Leone Wang, Lili Yin, Jianhai Zheng, Canjun Smith, Samuel Juana Ngegba, Esther Huang, Xiaoxia Kamara, Anitta Chen, Xia Wang, Xu Luo, Wei Kan, Biao Front Public Health Public Health Sierra Leone is a highly endemic area for malaria, and the implementation of the National Malaria Strategic Plan (2016–2020) has reached its midpoint in 2018. To provide more specific guidance for interventions in the future, a household-based cross-sectional survey was conducted to elucidate the knowledge, awareness and practices regarding malaria and malarial control measures among the general public. Three communities (Grafton, Jui, and Kossoh) in the Western Area Rural District that were in close proximity to Sierra Leone's capital city of Freetown were included. Households were randomly selected and interviewed with a structured questionnaire covering malaria infection, diagnosis, treatment and prevention, as well as knowledge of malaria prevention. As a result, a total of 262 qualified questionnaires were included. The average cost for meals per day is ~30,000 Leones in each household. The rate of awareness, indicated by reporting having heard of malaria, was 98.1% (257/262), and 86.6% (227/262) of the respondents knew that mosquito bites are the main route of transmission. In addition, 80.9% (212/262) of the respondents sought health advice or treatment for the illness, and a similar percentage of respondents had been tested for malaria, mostly with rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs). A high demand for long-lasting insecticidal nets (72.1%) matched the serious shortage (61.8%, 162/262), and of the households that reported a lack of nets, 66 had children younger than 5 years old. In conclusion, public awareness of malaria prevention is high, based on this survey, although there was a limited use of preventive measures in these three communities and the malaria burden was still high. Therefore, the public's knowledge of malaria should be sustained and reinforced, and the distribution and use of malaria prevention measures should be promoted to supprt the achievement of the planned objectives. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-03-18 /pmc/articles/PMC8012796/ /pubmed/33816430 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.664971 Text en Copyright © 2021 Wang, Yin, Zheng, Smith, Ngegba, Huang, Kamara, Chen, Wang, Luo and Kan. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Wang, Lili
Yin, Jianhai
Zheng, Canjun
Smith, Samuel Juana
Ngegba, Esther
Huang, Xiaoxia
Kamara, Anitta
Chen, Xia
Wang, Xu
Luo, Wei
Kan, Biao
A Household-Based Cross-Sectional Survey of Knowledge, Awareness and Practice Regarding Malaria in Western Area Rural District, Sierra Leone
title A Household-Based Cross-Sectional Survey of Knowledge, Awareness and Practice Regarding Malaria in Western Area Rural District, Sierra Leone
title_full A Household-Based Cross-Sectional Survey of Knowledge, Awareness and Practice Regarding Malaria in Western Area Rural District, Sierra Leone
title_fullStr A Household-Based Cross-Sectional Survey of Knowledge, Awareness and Practice Regarding Malaria in Western Area Rural District, Sierra Leone
title_full_unstemmed A Household-Based Cross-Sectional Survey of Knowledge, Awareness and Practice Regarding Malaria in Western Area Rural District, Sierra Leone
title_short A Household-Based Cross-Sectional Survey of Knowledge, Awareness and Practice Regarding Malaria in Western Area Rural District, Sierra Leone
title_sort household-based cross-sectional survey of knowledge, awareness and practice regarding malaria in western area rural district, sierra leone
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8012796/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33816430
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.664971
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