Impact of Intervention Practices on Malaria Treatment Outcomes Among Patients in Bushenyi District, Uganda

Abstract

Malaria remains a major vector borne disease causing both mortalities and morbidities in the world. Uganda as a country has currently scaled out major campaigns to reduce and eliminate the disease using different interventions. However, there is no clear data on the impact of such interventions on malaria treatment outcomes. Therefore, this study was aimed at assessing the impact of malaria intervention practices on Artemether- Lumefantrine (AL) treatment outcomes among the residents of Bushenyi district, Uganda, a high intensity malaria transmission area. Methods This was a descriptive cross-sectional study carried out among 184 study participants for a period of one year (August 2017 to August 2018) in four selected health centers in Bushenyi district, Uganda. The investigative methods used included a researcher administered questionnaire, laboratory and clinical evaluations of participants. Data analysis was done by using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS version 10 windows) for descriptive statistics. Results Statistically significant factors for treatment outcome at p ≤0.05 were; practicing indoor residual spraying (IRS) at home (𝑃 = 0.001; CI), source of prescription (𝑃 = 0.018; CI), finishing dosage (𝑃 = 0.006; CI), frequency of malaria infection (𝑃 = 0.028; CI), Frequency of antimalaria usage (𝑃 = 0.042; CI) and sleeping under insecticide treated nets (ITNs) (𝑃 = 0.039; CI) respectively. Conclusions IRS and ITNs were found to be the major intervention practice of malaria reduction after treatment with ACTs.