Rgn. Lubanga et al., MATERNAL DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT OF CHILDRENS FEVER IN AN ENDEMIC MALARIA ZONE OF UGANDA - IMPLICATIONS FOR THE MALARIA CONTROL PROGRAM, Acta Tropica, 68(1), 1997, pp. 53-64
A mother's ability to suspect malaria in the presence of fever has imp
ortant consequences for child survival in malaria-endemic areas. This
paper presents results of a clinic-based study of mothers' abilities t
o suspect malaria in the event of recognizing fever and other physiolo
gical and behavioral changes associated with the disease. The study po
pulation consisted of all (439) women or mothers who had accompanied c
hildren 5 years and below to the Old Murago Hospital, Kampala, Uganda
over a IO day period during the malaria season of 1992. The children w
ere those who had fever as a major complaint at the time of the visit
or those who had fever in the last 7 days and were visiting the clinic
for the first time for the current illness. The children were physica
lly examined and their brood tested for malaria parasites. Mothers' di
agnosis was compared with clinical and laboratory diagnosis of malaria
. Mothers associated the presence of fever with several types of illne
ss and malaria was often not suspected. Only 40% of the mothers suspec
ted malaria in their children. The mothers were poor at recognizing ma
laria when, in fact, it was present. The sensitivity of the mothers' d
iagnosis of malaria was found to be 37%; 63% of malaria cases were mis
classified as other conditions. The doctors classified most (92%) of t
he cases presenting with fever as having malaria, but laboratory tests
indicated that only 64% of the children really had malaria. The sensi
tivity of clinical diagnosis was 98% but the specificity was only 18%.
Ninety percent of the mothers gave some medicines before visiting the
health centre; and, of these, 76% gave modern drugs exclusively, incl
uding antimalarials, antipyretics, antibiotics and other drugs. Among
the modern drugs given to children suspected of having malaria, 50% we
re antimalarials. The most commonly used antimalarial was chloroquine
tablets. Mothers indiscriminately administered antimalarials to childr
en irrespective of the perceived cause of the fever. There is need to
educate mothers to suspect malaria first in every case of febrile illn
ess, just like the doctors do, and about the first line drugs for the
treatment of malaria. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.