Health behavior, treatment-seeking patterns, and cost of treatment for patients visiting malaria clinics in western Thailand.

A clinic-based case-control study was conducted at two malaria clinics in western Thailand in order to investigate social and behavioral factors believed to be associated with malaria occurrence. The finding was that the malaria cases were predominantly male, under age 25 and single. The results showed a significant association for use of mosquito nets, conformance with DDT spraying and residing in forested areas two weeks before occurrence of illness with malaria. Analysis of symptoms revealed fever, headache and chills to be the major noticeable symptoms initiating treatment. Three basic treatment-seeking patterns were observed. The results of this study suggest that particular attention should be given to malaria health education for younger age groups and forest-related people. In addition, attention should also be given to ways of increasing awareness of symptoms, and motivation of people to use malaria clinics for malaria screening and treatment at onset of first symptoms in order to eliminate treatment-seeking at ineffective first sources. Malaria Voluntary Collaborators, Village Health Volunteers and Village Health Communicators have an important role in convincing people in malarious areas to use malaria clinics for malaria screening and treatment when the villagers develop malaria-like symptoms. This would reduce disease transmission and severity by reducing the delay for efficacious treatment and would also reduce the cost of malaria treatment.