Situational Factors: The Ever Present Bottlenecks in Efforts to Improve Personal Treatment Seeking-Behavior Regarding Malaria in Uganda

Abstract

This study assesses the contribution of situational factors to an individuals’ disposition towards seeking treatment when they have or suspect themselves to have malaria. The purpose of this study was to get evidence-based knowledge on the role of situational factors in order to inform areas of interventions that could increase individual’s active involvement in their health-care mainly in seeking timely treatment for malaria or suspected malaria. This is a cross-sectional, correlational design on a clustered sample of 380 rural households in 05 sub-counties of Kanungu district. Data were collected using researcher-administered questionnaires, structured and pre-tested on a population of 380 persons. Key-informant interviews and focus group discussions were held. Results indicated a significant positive relationship between Situational factors and treatment seeking behavior (r = 296**, p ≤ 0.0). In conclusion, when an individual suspect to have malaria through personal assessment of the attendant feelings from signs and symptoms, what immediately comes to mind are the situational elements like distance to the health facility and cost of treatment. It is recommended that health communicators should address situational factors which, according to this study are mainly costs related. If it is distance, messages should mirror the advantages of distance in order to change behavior in that direction.