Assessment of knowledge about malaria among patients reported with fever: a hospital-based study.

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES: Knowledge about malaria, attitude and health seeking behaviour of fever patients attending Medicine Out Patient Department at Safdarjang Hospital, New Delhi were studied from June to August 2003. METHODS: Cross-sectional survey comprising 200 fever cases was done with prestructured and pretested questionnaire. Data on sociodemographic profile, history of fever, health seeking behaviour, etc were recorded. RESULTS: About 83% of fever cases did not approach the doctor even after three days of onset of fever symptom, 25.5% tried self medication and 20.5% approached chemists for treatment. Knowledge about causes and prevention of malaria was found to be inadequate in the study subjects. INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSION: Knowledge about malaria is poor even in persons residing in urban localities and proper health education is required for successful control of malaria. Information, education and communication activities are indicated to create awareness among the community.

Awareness and practices regarding malaria of catchment population of a primary health centre in Delhi.

Malaria is a major public health problem in India. IEC activities have been an important activity of National Anti Malaria Programme. The present study was undertaken with the objective to assess awareness and practices regarding malaria among patients attending malaria clinic. Literacy status was low among the respondents. About 57% of respondents were aware of the cause of malaria as parasite or mosquito and awareness increased with the literacy status (49.4% in illiterate to 85.4% in high school and above literate). More than half (51.0%) of the respondents attributed high fever with chills and rigor as the most important symptom of malaria, but some of the respondents also mentioned only high fever (18.9%) or high fever with diarrhea (21.2%) as main symptom of malaria. Majority of the respondents knew that mosquito bred in water (62.9%) and mosquito breeding could be prevented (56.6%), knowledge significantly better among literate than illiterates. The present study showed that the awareness and practices about the cause and prevention of malaria were just fair among the patients attending the Malaria Clinic of a Primary Health Centre of Delhi and were dependent upon the literacy status of the study population. Poor response towards practising preventive measures against mosquito bites as approx. one third were not practising any method could be due to poor awareness about malaria preventive measures.

Pulse polio programme: an overview of parent's perception.

India is contributing large number of total world's polio cases. The present study was carried out with the objective to assess the knowledge of the parents regarding pulse polio and their perception towards pulse polio and other immunization. The study revealed that children of all age groups participated in PPI though the coverage was low in 37-48 and 49-60 month age group. In all 30.5% children of respondents could not get OPV in the previous year and they came for the first time to the PPI centre. A significant finding of the study was the status of children regarding other immunization, as 59.5% of the respondents were not immunizing their children for other vaccines. In the present study, 73.2% of the respondents could tell correctly about pulse polio. Predominant source of information about pulse polio was found to be electronic media (55.8%) followed by health workers (20.9%). Only 8.4% respondents opined that distance of PPI centre was far away from their residence.