Malaria case management among Primary Health Care workers in Sokoto

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY: Among the current strategies for malaria control in Nigeria include early recognition and adequate treatment of cases through capacity building of health workers. This therefore forms the basis of this study; so that an evidence based intervention programme will be designed for area and cadre specific identified gaps among PHC Workers in Sokoto with a view to achieve better control measures.

A total of 195 PHC Health workers in Sokoto who met the eligibility and inclusion criteria were enlisted and enrolled into the study (descriptive cross-sectional) using table of random numbers. The data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire containing relevant questions on respondent biodata and Knowledge on the management of cases of malaria.

Overall, only 71 (36.4%) of respondents were found to have adequate and effective treatment practices of malaria infection. However, age (p=0.4294), professional cadre (p=0.2988) and years of experience (p=0.1922) are not important determinants of malaria treatment pattern observed among respondents.

This finding highlights ineffective treatment practices that may hinder the attainment of the goals of roll back malaria to reduce malaria cases by 50% by the year 2015. Hence periodic training and re-training of health workers based on identified gaps must be undertaken.