Malaria knowledge and agricultural practices that promote mosquito breeding in two rural farming communities in Oyo State, Nigeria

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Agricultural practices such as the use of irrigation during rice cultivation, the use of ponds for fish farming and the storage of water in tanks for livestock provide suitable breeding grounds for anthropophylic mosquitoes. The most common anthropophylic mosquito in Nigeria which causes much of the morbidity and mortality associated with malaria is the anopheles mosquito. Farmers are therefore at high risk of malaria - a disease which seriously impacts on agricultural productivity. Unfortunately information relating to agricultural practices and farmers' behavioural antecedent factors that could assist malaria programmers plan and implement interventions to reduce risk of infections among farmers is scanty. Farmers' knowledge about malaria and agricultural practices which favour the breeding of mosquitoes in Fashola and Soku, two rural farming communities in Oyo State were therefore assessed in two rural farming communities in Oyo State.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This descriptive cross-sectional study involved the collection of data through the use of eight Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and the interview of 403 randomly selected farmers using semi-structured questionnaires. These sets of information were supplemented with observations of agricultural practices made in 40 randomly selected farms. The FGD data were recorded on audio-tapes, transcribed and subjected to content analysis while the quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Most respondents in the two communities had low level of knowledge of malaria causation as only 12.4% stated that mosquito bite could transmit the disease. Less than half (46.7%) correctly mentioned the signs and symptoms of malaria as high body temperature, body pains, headache, body weakness and cold/fever. The reported main methods for preventing mosquito bites in the farming communities included removal of heaps of cassava tuber peelings (62.3%), bush burning/clearing (54.6%) and clearing of ditches (33.7%). The dumping of cassava tuber peelings which allows the collection of pools of water in the farms storage of peeled cassava tubers soaked in water in uncovered plastic containers, digging of trenches, irrigation of farms and the presence of fish ponds were the observed major agricultural practices that favoured mosquito breeding on the farms. A significant association was observed between respondents' knowledge about malaria and agricultural practices which promote mosquito breeding. Respondents' wealth quintile level was also seen to be associated with respondents' knowledge about malaria and agricultural practices which promote mosquito breeding.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Farmers' knowledge of malaria causation and signs and symptoms was low, while agricultural practices which favour mosquito breeding in the farming communities were common. There is an urgent need to engage farmers in meaningful dialogue on malaria reduction initiatives including the modification of agricultural practices which favour mosquito breeding. Multiple intervention strategies are needed to tackle the factors related to malaria prevalence and mosquito abundance in the communities.</p

How to bridge the gap between hospital and home?

Many countries have separate organizations for delivering nursing care to patients in the hospital and to patients at home in the community. This separation creates extra difficulties in organizing continuous care for patients discharged from hospital who need nursing aftercare (in The Netherlands, at a rough estimate, 10% of all hospital patients). Special arrangements have to be made to prevent these patients missing out completely. By means of a questionnaire sent to all Dutch regional community nursing organizations, this study makes an inventory of the organizational measures that have been taken in this field in The Netherlands and analyses a model of the effects these measures (and also the effects on contextual factors) have on the number of problems reported by the community in respect of continuity of care. In The Netherlands, the initiative in arranging continuity of care is taken by the regional community nursing organizations or by their operational teams. In most cases, they have been able to make arrangements with the hospitals about the selection of aftercare patients and the transfer of information by transfer forms. Sometimes special continuity nurses are appointed by the community, among other things to organize regular consultation with the hospitals. An eight-item Likert scale was developed to measure the extent of continuity problems. Analysis of the effect of several factors in the model by a stepwise multiple regression analysis, revealed that the consistent use of transfer forms by hospitals was an important tool in reducing the problems. Furthermore, regional community nursing organizations themselves had fewer problems compared with the operational teams to whom arranging continuity is sometimes delegated. Increased personnel capacity within the community is also beneficial. The effect of these last two factors (organizational level and personnel capacity) is, however, overruled, by the negative effect of the size of the regional community nursing organization: the more inhabitants, the more problems there are. (aut. ref.