Matangila Junior R, Fraeyman Jessica, Kambulu Marie-Louise Mbula, Mpanya Alain, da Luz Raquel Inocêncio, Lutumba Pascal, Van Geertruyden Jean-Pierre, Bastiaens Hilde
Département de Médecine Tropicale, Université de Kinshasa, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Epidemiology for Global Health Institute, University of Antwerp, Campus Drie Eiken, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610, Wilrijk, Belgium.
Malar J. 2017 Jan 7;16(1):19. doi: 10.1186/s12936-016-1670-2.
Intermittent preventive treatment (IPT) is likely to be the most promising therapeutic strategy to prevent malaria and its related adverse outcomes in schoolchildren. However, its successful implementation will depend on acceptability to key stakeholders such as parents and teachers.
A qualitative research was conducted, following a clinical trial assessing the effectiveness of IPT in schoolchildren (IPTsc), to understand the perceptions and experiences of parents and teachers with IPTsc, in two schools of Mokali, in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Eighty parents participated in 8 focus group discussions and 6 school staff were involved in 6 semi-structured interviews.
Parents experiences with IPTsc divided them into two groups (owning positive experiences and owning negative experiences with IPTsc). Three major themes emerged as key factors associated with reluctance of parents to IPT use in schoolchildren. These included wrong malaria-related knowledge, bad experience with IPTsc administered during the trial and misunderstanding of IPTsc. The school staff were generally willing to be trained to give medicine to schoolchildren within the scope of IPT. However, most parents were more comfortable with the use of health workers than teachers for drug administration. More importantly, all parents accepting IPT suggested to diagnose malaria infection before any administration of IPT, which is not in line with IPT principal.
These results suggest that more efforts are needed to improve overall malaria-related knowledge in the community, specifically chemo-prevention strategies and the safety of the drugs used, to ensure the success of health interventions.
间歇性预防治疗（IPT）可能是预防学龄儿童疟疾及其相关不良后果最有前景的治疗策略。然而，其成功实施将取决于家长和教师等关键利益相关者的接受程度。
在一项评估IPT对学龄儿童有效性（IPTsc）的临床试验之后，开展了一项定性研究，以了解刚果民主共和国金沙萨莫卡利两所学校的家长和教师对IPTsc的看法和体验。80名家长参与了8次焦点小组讨论，6名学校工作人员参与了6次半结构化访谈。
家长对IPTsc的体验将他们分为两组（对IPTsc有积极体验和消极体验）。出现了三个主要主题，是与家长不愿在学龄儿童中使用IPT相关的关键因素。这些因素包括与疟疾相关的错误知识、试验期间IPTsc给药的不良体验以及对IPTsc的误解。学校工作人员普遍愿意接受培训，以便在IPT范围内给学龄儿童给药。然而，大多数家长认为由卫生工作者而非教师给药更放心。更重要的是，所有接受IPT的家长都建议在进行任何IPT给药之前先诊断疟疾感染，这与IPT原则不符。
这些结果表明，需要做出更多努力来提高社区总体疟疾相关知识，特别是化学预防策略和所用药物的安全性，以确保卫生干预措施的成功。
