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Background: Prompt access to early diagnosis and effective antimalarial treatment at health facilities is one of the major strategies for reducing the burden of malaria. Objective: To assess treatment seeking behaviour and its determinant factors among malaria patients attending malaria control laboratories (MCLs). Methods: Health facility-based cross-sectional study was carried out in East Shewa Zone of Oromia Regional State in October 2000. The study subjects were 392 microscopically confirmed malaria patients of both sexes attending Adama, Bushoftu and Zeway MCLs. Results: The results indicated that 52.6% of the total malaria cases was due to P. falciparum and 47.4% due to P. vivax. About 87% of them came directly to MCLs without seeking treatment from any other sources and treated with sulphadoxine-pyremethamine or chloroquine. While 13% used antimalarial drugs from different sources before coming to MCLs, with 72% of them being from rural areas. Only 25.5% of the patients visited the laboratories within two days while the remaining 74.5% came to MCLs three or more days after the onset of malaria illness. The main reasons cited for the delay (three or more days) were mild illness (44.2%), high workload (19.9%), financial problems (19.2%) and thought of other diseases. The satisfaction of malaria patients towards MCL services was very high (99.2%). Free laboratory service and antimalarial drugs (95.6%), short waiting time for laboratory results (84.3%), good quality of laboratory services (98.5%) with adequate and correct treatment (96.9%) were the major reasons mentioned for the high satisfaction rate. Conclusions: A large proportion of malaria cases seek treatment at MCLs three or more days after the onset of malaria illness without taking medications from other sources indicating an extreme delay in early diagnosis and treatment mainly due to mild illness, financial problems, work overload and lack of access. Accordingly, more emphasis should be given on identifying innovative ways of securing antimalarial drugs particularly for people in rural areas. Resistance of P. falciparum to SP should be monitored and evaluated. In addition, a large proportion of malaria cases are due to P. vivax and studies on chloroquine efficacy against its treatment should be initiated and strengthened to enable the early detection of resistance. Ethiop.J.Health Dev. 2003;17(2):9-15
Deressa et al. (Wed,) studied this question.