Community Attitude Towards Malaria Control Strategies and Incidence of Malaria in Mpumude Division, Jinja District

Abstract

The study sought to establish the association between community attitude towards malaria control strategies and incidence of malaria. The objectives were: To describe the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents, to assess the community’s attitude towards the available malaria control strategies in Mpumude Division, to find out the incidence of malaria in Mpumude Division, to establish the association between community attitude towards malaria control strategies and malaria incidence in Mpumude Division A cross sectional and correlation survey was conducted using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 351 household heads. A structured questionnaire was the main tool used supplemented by interview guide. The findings show many [169(50.9%)] were male, [176(53%)] had average household size of 3 – 5 people. Overall community attitude towards malaria control strategies was high (2.91, std. = 0.57), incidence of malaria was high were majority [273(82.2%)] reported cases of malaria in the last four months. The study showed significant association between household income [p = 0.027, OR (0.124 – 0.804) = 0.527], house wall type [p = 0.021, OR (0.0.123 – 0.840) = 0.322], seeking diagnostic and malaria treatment [p = 0.016, OR (0.124– 0.804) = 0.316] and malaria incidence. It was recommended that Malaria control interventions should focus on community attitude towards seeking diagnostic and malaria treatment, improving household income and house walls.