Integrating child health services into malaria control services of village malaria workers in remote Cambodia: service utilization and knowledge of malaria management of caregivers

Malaria Journal

Research

Junko Yasuoka¹  Masamine Jimba¹  Aya Hasegawa¹  Po Ly²  Chea Nguon² 

[1] Department of Community and Global Health, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, 113-0033, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan;National Centre for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control, 372 Monivong Boulevard, Phnom Penh, Cambodia;

关键词: Malaria;    Child health;    Communicable diseases;    Quality of service;    Health service utilization;    Community health worker;    Cambodia;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1475-2875-12-292

 received in 2013-05-02, accepted in 2013-08-21,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundMalaria and other communicable diseases remain major threats in developing countries. In Cambodia, village malaria workers (VMWs) have been providing malaria control services in remote villages to cope with the disease threats. In 2009, the VMW project integrated child health services into the original malaria control services. However, little has been studied about the utilization of VMWs’ child health services. This study aimed to identify determinants of caregivers’ VMW service utilization for childhood illness and caregivers’ knowledge of malaria management.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted in 36 VMW villages of Kampot and Kampong Thom provinces in July-September 2012. An equal number of VMW villages with malaria control services only (M) and those with malaria control plus child health services (M+C) were selected from each province. Using structured questionnaires, 800 caregivers of children under five and 36 VMWs, one of the two VMWs who was providing VMW services in each study village were interviewed.ResultsAmong the caregivers, 23% in M villages and 52% in M+C villages utilized VMW services for childhood illnesses. Determinants of caregivers’ utilization of VMWs in M villages included their VMWs’ length of experience (AOR = 11.80, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 4.46-31.19) and VMWs’ service quality (AOR = 2.04, CI = 1.01-4.11). In M+C villages, VMWs’ length of experience (AOR = 2.44, CI = 1.52-3.94) and caregivers’ wealth index (AOR = 0.35, CI = 0.18-0.68) were associated with VMW service utilization. Meanwhile, better service quality of VMWs (AOR = 3.21, CI = 1.34-7.66) and caregivers’ literacy (AOR = 9.91, CI = 4.66-21.05) were positively associated with caregivers’ knowledge of malaria management.ConclusionsVMWs’ service quality and length of experience are important determinants of caregivers’ utilization of VMWs’ child health services and their knowledge of malaria management. Caregivers are seeking VMWs’ support for childhood illnesses even if they are providing only malaria control services. This underlines the importance of scaling-up VMWs’ capacity by adding child health services of good quality, which will result in improving child health status in remote Cambodia.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Hasegawa et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. 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.