Factors associated with utilization of mosquito nets in Northern Uganda

Abstract

This study aimed at factors associated with utilization of mosquito bed nets utilization in northern Uganda. The assessment was made on age of respondent, type of residence, education levels, wealth index and region using data extracted from 2014-2015 Uganda Malaria Indicator Survey. The Data set that was used in this study was specifically for women in the reproductive ages (aged 15-49 years) and a sample of about 4728 women aged 15-49 years who were interviewed during the survey. The study targeted women who slept under mosquito bed nets in northern Uganda and a total of 2002 women were interviewed in the region. Regressions were run to get the most contributing demographic and socio economic variable. The study showed that there was a significant relationship between utilization of mosquito bed nets and the explanatory variables that is age of respondent, education level, wealth index and region(p<0.05), while type of residence was not significantly associated with utilization of mosquito bed nets(p>0.05). The results of the study indicated that most of the respondents who slept under mosquito bed nets were those aged 25-29 and constituted 29.5%, respondent’s level of education was 57.4%, 24.5%, 11.7%, and 6.1% for primary, secondary, no education and higher respectively. According to this study, majority of the respondents were rural dwellers and accounted for 75.3% while urban dwellers only accounted for 24.7%. Most of the respondents were from north east 43.9%, followed by mid north 35.9% and then west Nile 20.2%. Majority of the respondents were using treated mosquito bed nets in their households 82.5%t and only 17.5% of the respondents were not using treated mosquito bed nets in their households. The use of mosquito bed nets among respondents has been found to be effective in preventing malaria infection. However presence of mosquito bed nets in a household may not reflect utilization because not all respondents who owned a mosquito net slept under it. Therefore efforts to increase utilization of mosquito bed nets should be based on detailed evidence on particular areas. Finding suggests that there is need for intensive education emphasizing on their proper and consistent use thus scaling up proper use of ITNs along with other initiatives can contribute expressively in reducing malaria.