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Abstract

In Nigeria, malaria continues to cause deaths and keep the vast majority of people in poverty. Antimalaria is the most self-medicated drug in Nigeria, thereby creating serious damages to the people and also undermine malaria control efforts.

A cross-sectional study was implemented through a purposive sampling method to collect quantitative data from 50 people from three communities that benefited from free/subsidized malaria diagnosis/treatment services and two communities that did not. Eight months' data of patients' uptakes during and before malaria subsidy were obtained from Imagine No Malaria project in Nigeria and analyzed. With a random sampling, qualitative data was collected through an in-depth interview with five health personnel, three local pharmacy owners, and two focus group discussions from 16 community members. Descriptive statistics and chi-square test at 0.05 significant level were used to analyze the quantitative data using SPSS. The qualitative data was described according to themes.

The study found a high level of malaria prevention awareness amongst the study population, although, out of 56% of those in possession of mosquito nets, only 34% sleep under the mosquito nets every night. High-cost of malaria treatment hindered the majority of those without malaria treatment subsidies from seeking malaria services from the clinic/hospital; up to 91.3% of them borrowed money/sold something to pay for malaria treatments fees. The results showed that access to malaria diagnosis/treatment subsidy was significantly associated with access to malaria diagnosis/treatment services in clinics/hospitals (p-values = 0.000), thereby reducing self-medication practices with antimalaria amongst the study population. The high cost of malaria treatment is the main hindrance to access to malaria treatment services; the affected population resorted to self-medication with substandard antimalarial drugs. An effective diagnosis-dependent malaria treatment subsidy can improve access to malaria diagnosis/treatment services, thereby discouraging self-medication practices among people in the rural communities in Taraba state.

Course: International Development Studies (DL) - MSC - P2517PTD

Date Deposited: 2024-04-09

URI/permalink: https://www.library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis14386.html