Factors associated with the uptake of intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy in the Bamenda health districts, Cameroon

INTRODUCTION : the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that in malaria endemic areas with moderate to high transmission rates, pregnant women presenting for antenatal clinic (ANC) should receive at least three doses of intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy (IPTp) for malar ia between the 16th and 36th weeks of pregnancy at intervals of 4 weeks between doses. Several challenges remain in effective implementation of IPTp policy making the targeted coverage (80%) of the third doses of IPTp far from being achieved. The main objective of this study was to assess factors associated with the uptake of IPTp among pregnant women attending ANCs in the Bamenda Health District. METHODS : to reach our objectives, we carried out a cross-sectional study following informed consent with thirty-nine (39) healthcare workers (HCW) and four hundred (400) pregnant women who were either in the third trimester of pregnancy or had recently given birth in any of thirty-six (36) health facilities (HF) within the Bamenda Health District (BHD) from May to August 2014. All sites within the BHD were included. The participants were selected by simple random sampling. The principal research instrument was a structured and pre-tested questionnaire that was designed to capture socio-demographic data and data related to stage of pregnancy and knowledge about IPTp. Data was entered using Ms Excel and analysed using SPSS v20.0. Descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentages) was used to report findings. We used Chi-Square test to compare the categorical variables (Fischer’s exact test was used in cases were conditions for Chi-Square test were not met). RESULTS : uptake for at least one dose of IPTp was 95.3% (381/400) and 54.9% (209/400) had received all three doses, 15.5% (59/400) received only one dose and 4.8% (19/400) did not receive any of the doses of IPTp. Knowledge about IPTp was associated with an increase uptake of IPTp (P