Utilization of Intermittent Preventive Treatment of Malaria by Pregnant Women in Rivers State, Nigeria

Background: this study was conducted to assess the level ofintermittent preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy (iptp)in rivers state, nigeria, to identify obstacles prohibiting utilizationin order to make recommendations for improved uptake andmalaria control in general.methods: a cross?sectional study was carried out in november2008 among 339 pregnant women and those who had deliveredchildren in the last 1 year, using a multistage sampling method.data were analyzed using the epi?info version 6.04d statisticalsoftware package and hypothesis tests were conducted to comparesummary statistics at 95% significance level.results: most of the respondents (76.4%) had knowledge thatmalaria was caused by mosquitoes and was harmful in pregnancy.although majority of the pregnant women (80.8%) attendedantenatal care clinics, knowledge of the correct use of sp waslow (32.6%) and only 62.8% took malaria preventive treatment.of these, 58.4% took sp, while nearly a third, 31.8%, tookchloroquine. only 16.4% took their sp at the health facility directlyobserved by health workers according to the national guidelines.the commonest reason for not preventing malaria was that theywere not sick during the period of pregnancy.conclusions: misconceptions about iptp persist among womenknown to have attended antenatal care clinics, resulting in onlya minority of pregnant women receiving iptp as recommendedby national guidelines. efforts directed at awareness creation onthe new malaria prevention and treatment policy are thereforenecessary to enhance the uptake of ipt in pregnancy in rivers state.further studies are however, needed to evaluate the knowledgeand practices of health care workers on the new malaria treatmentpolicy.