Department of Public Health Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Health and Allied Sciences, Ho, Ghana.
College of Nursing, Yonsei University, 50-1, Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, 03722, Korea.
BMC Public Health. 2022 May 10;22(1):940. doi: 10.1186/s12889-022-13347-x.
Insecticide-treated net (ITN) is a cost-effective means to control malaria and morbidity in under-five children. This study synthesizes the factors associated with using the ITN as a malaria prevention tool in sub-Saharan Africa.
There was an advanced search of four electronic databases, including PubMed Central, CINAHL, EMBASE, and Google Scholar, and identified articles between 2016 to April 2021. Following the title, abstract and full-text reading, 13 articles were deemed appropriate for this review. All the researchers developed, discussed, and accepted a matrix to extract relevant information from the studies. A convergent synthesis was adopted and allowed for integrating qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method studies and transforming them into qualitative findings.
Household and caregiver related factors that influenced utilization of the ITN were, Household heads having two or more sleeping places, a knowledge that ITN prevents malaria, the presence of hanging ITNs, high literacy, living female-headed households, birth spacing, unmarried mothers, and antenatal clinic attendance promoted utilization. Perceived malaria risk was a critical determinant of ITN ownership and utilization. Some factors that hindered the use of the ITN included hotness of the weather, absence of visible mosquitoes, cost, inadequate number, rooms designs, unaffordability, insufficient knowledge on causes of malaria, and poor attitude to use. Specific ITN factors that hindered use were color, chemicals use, odor, and shape.
It is important to use integrated multi-sectoral and culturally appropriate interventions to encourage households to prioritize and utilize the ITN in under-5 children.
经杀虫剂处理的蚊帐（ITN）是控制疟疾和五岁以下儿童发病率的一种具有成本效益的方法。本研究综合了与撒哈拉以南非洲使用 ITN 作为疟疾预防工具相关的因素。
对四个电子数据库（包括 PubMed Central、CINAHL、EMBASE 和 Google Scholar）进行了高级搜索，并确定了 2016 年至 2021 年 4 月期间的文章。经过标题、摘要和全文阅读，有 13 篇文章被认为适合本综述。所有研究人员都制定了、讨论了并接受了一个矩阵，以从研究中提取相关信息。采用了收敛综合法，将定性、定量和混合方法研究整合为定性发现。
影响 ITN 使用的家庭和照顾者相关因素包括：家庭户主有两个或更多的睡眠场所、知道 ITN 可以预防疟疾、有悬挂的 ITN、高识字率、女性户主家庭、生育间隔、未婚母亲和产前诊所就诊促进了 ITN 的使用。感知疟疾风险是 ITN 拥有和使用的关键决定因素。一些阻碍 ITN 使用的因素包括天气炎热、没有可见的蚊子、成本、数量不足、房间设计、负担不起、对疟疾原因的知识不足、以及对使用的态度不佳。具体的 ITN 因素包括颜色、化学品使用、气味和形状。
重要的是要使用综合的多部门和文化上适当的干预措施，鼓励家庭优先考虑和在五岁以下儿童中使用 ITN。
