Self-medication practice with antimalarials & the determinants of malaria treatment-seeking behavior among postpartum mothers in a rural community in Nigeria.

BACKGROUND

The majority of the population has inappropriate malaria treatment-seeking behavior and little is known about self-medication practice with antimalarials among postpartum mothers.

AIM & OBJECTIVES OF STUDY: The study, therefore, aims to determine the prevalence of self-treatment practice with antimalarials and identify factors that determine inappropriate treatment-seeking practice in this susceptible group.

RESEARCH METHODS

The study is a cross-sectional study that was conducted using a purposive sampling technique. In the study, 150 respondents were administered questionnaires by one-on-one interviews, and results were presented as frequencies and proportions. A chi-square test was done to determine the association between independent categorical variables and the dependent variable.

RESULTS

In the study, 91 (60.7%) of the women claimed they did malaria screening tests in the laboratory/clinic before treatment, while only half of them sought professional care for treatment after the screening test. Additionally, most of the participants claimed they practice self-medication with antimalarials for themselves (64, 42.7%), and their newborn children (34, 22.7%). The experience of adverse effects (χ = 4.790, df = 1, p = .029) drug prescription by doctors (χ = 10.26, df = 1, p = .001) and the experience of malaria in the rainy season (χ = 4.86, df = 2, p = .027) was significantly related to receiving malaria treatment in the clinic/hospital.

CONCLUSION

The study has shown that the practice of self-medication and inappropriate malaria treatment behavior is common in postpartum women in rural settings hence public health intervention that will develop standardized self-treatment guidelines for uncomplicated malaria will be useful in promoting appropriate self-treatment practice in this population. Highlights Self-medication practice with antimalarials among postpartum mothers both for themselves and their newborn child was 42.7% and 22.7% respectively One of the reasons adduced for such practice is that malaria is expensive to treat (37, 24.7%) Artemether/lumefantrine combination was the most commonly used drug for treatment (75.3%), and most of the participants preferred parenteral medication (68%) to oral drugs The experience of adverse effects was significantly related to receiving treatment in the clinic/hospital Of the 60.7% of women who claimed they did malaria screening test, only half of them sought professional care after the test.