Knowledge and acceptability of the rectal treatment route in Laos and its application for pre-referral emergency malaria treatment

Malaria Journal

Research

Southisouk Inthavilay¹  Thierry Franchard¹  Hubert Barennes¹  Yang Meimei¹  Elizabeth A Ashley² 

[1] Institut Francophone pour la Médecine Tropicale, Vientiane, Laos;Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU), Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand;

关键词: Malaria;    Health Care Worker;    Severe Malaria;    Artesunate;    Malaria Treatment;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1475-2875-9-342

 received in 2010-07-06, accepted in 2010-11-27,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundRectal artesunate has been shown to reduce death and disability from severe malaria caused by delays in reaching facilities capable of providing appropriate treatment.Acceptability of this mode of drug delivery in Laos is not known. In 2009 the acceptability of rectal treatments was evaluated among the general Lao population and Lao doctors in a national survey.MethodsA cross sectional survey was performed of 985 households selected through a multi-stage random sampling process from 85 villages in 12/18 provinces and of 315 health staff randomly selected at each administrative level.ResultsOut of 985 families, 9% had used the rectal route to treat children (the main indication was seizures or constipation). The population considered it less effective than other routes. Other concerns raised included pain (28%), discomfort for children (40%) and the possibility of other side effects (20%). Of 300 health staff surveyed (nurses 44%, doctors 66%), only 51% had already used the rectal route with a suppository, mostly to treat fever (76%). Health staff working in provincial hospitals had more experience of using the rectal route than those in urban areas. The majority (92%) were keen to use the rectal route to treat malaria although oral and intramuscular routes were preferred and considered to be more efficacious.Discussion and conclusionUse of rectal treatments is uncommon in Laos and generally not considered to be very effective. This view is shared by the population and health care workers. More information and training are needed to convince the population and health staff of the efficacy and advantages of the rectal route for malaria treatment.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Inthavilay et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.