Malaria: Knowledge, Attitudes and Acceptances of Rapid Diagnostic Test amongst Primary Healthcare Workers in Some Selected Local Government Areas, Lagos State, Nigeria

Introduction : Malaria still remains a public health challenge in Nigeria and its treatment is expensive due to the introduction of Artemesinin-based Combination Therapy (ACT). This burden can be minimised through confirmation of the diagnosis using Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) at the primary care facilities. However one may be concern about the knowledge, acceptance and proper usage of RDTs in the management of malaria at the primary care level. Method : Two hundred and sixty eight primary health workers in Lagos, Nigeria were recruited into this cross-sectional descriptive study using self-administered questionnaire. Epi- info version 3.5.1 statistical software was used for data analysis. Results : Two hundred and one (75%) of the total participants were female and majority (34.3%) were aged 40 years or more. None of the respondents had good knowledge of RDT usage, however about 200(74.6%) had fair knowledge of it. Good acceptance of RDT was 7(2.6%) even though 203(75.7%) participants had used RDT before this study was conducted. Nurse/midwives showed significantly good acceptable level of RDT compared to other cadres of staff (X 2 = 41.783; P-VALUE = 0.003). Conclusion : The health workers in PHC have fair knowledge, acceptance and usage of RDT despite the fact that most of them have not been trained on proper usage of RDTs for management of malaria. Therefore there is need for periodic training of the workers on proper use of RDTs.