Assessment of treatment seeking behavior of malaria suspected fever patients attending urban health and training centre Chameli Chouk, Sagar

ABSTRACT

Background: As malaria is among the leading public health problems globally as well as in India, early diagnosis and treatment of cases is one of the key interventions for its control and elimination. Present study was done to assess treatment-seeking behaviour and associated factors among malaria suspected patients.Methods: Present study was carried out at urban health and training center, Sagar, Madhya Pradesh. The hospital based prospective study by facility based identification of patients. Study was under taken from 1st Oct 2018 to 31st march 2019. All malaria suspected cases of fever cases who got tested for malaria. Purposive sampling technique. After a pilot study final questionnaire regarding treatment seeking behavior were used to collect information from 285 patients of fever data was analyzed in word excel 2007 using percentage and proportion.Results: In present study we found that out of 285 patients only 54 (18.94%) patient approached health facility within 24 hours. Majority of patient 93(32.63%) adopted self medication practice, 20.00% patient, who did nothing and waited for self resolution of fever. Majority of 39.82% answered mildness of disease as a reason for delay in getting treatment.Conclusions: A low proportion of malaria-suspected patients sought treatment within 24 h of fever onset compared to the national target. Awareness about the advantage early treatment-seeking need to be increased through health education and behavioural change communication.