Malaria in West Cameroon: An Assessment of the Populations’ Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices

Malaria remains one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality in Cameroon. Children under 5 years old and pregnant women are most burdened. A few studies have been carried out on the knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) of patients towards malaria in this country. We aimed at evaluating the level of knowledge, attitudes and practice towards malaria in Western Cameroon. We conducted a cross-sectional survey, using a semi-opened questionnaire in two Cameroonian’s hospitals in April 2018. We analyzed our collected data with Chi square test through SAS software (version 9.4). P-values lower than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Of 691 participants, 55.14% (381/691) defined malaria as a parasitic disease, 100% mentioned the mosquito as the transmission vector and 89.15% 616/691) mentioned blood stream as transmission route. The most preventive method used by the participants was mosquito nets. The use of malaria treatment was associated with the level of income and the fact of consultation of a health care practitioner the month preceding the survey. About 72.4% (501/691) of respondents took antimalarial treatment without consultation or medical prescription. Among patients who spent less than 8000XAF (12Euro) for treatment during
their last episode of malaria, 70.1% (101/144) used a plant-based treatment. Participants had good knowledge and attitudes towards malaria. However, practices were not the best. These results highlight the problem of self-medication, which might lead to some resistance against antimalarial treatment in the future.