Author(s)

Frank B. Ahimbisibwe¹, Leon Matagi², Ornan Amadou Mwijukye¹, Privah Atuhaire³, Laureen Carson Alinda⁴, Mohamed Senkumba⁵

¹Faculty of Business and Management Sciences, Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Mbarara, Uganda.
²School of Psychology, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.
³Department of Mass Communication, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.
⁴Faculty of Applied Science and Technology, Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Mbarara, Uganda.
⁵School of Statistics, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.

This study assesses the contribution of situational factors to an individuals’ disposition towards seeking treatment when they have or suspect themselves to have malaria. The purpose of this study was to get evidence-based knowledge on the role of situational factors in order to inform areas of interventions that could increase individual’s active involvement in their health-care mainly in seeking timely treatment for malaria or suspected malaria. This is a cross-sectional, correlational design on a clustered sample of 380 rural house-holds in 05 sub-counties of Kanungu district. Data were collected using researcher-administered questionnaires, structured and pre-tested on a population of 380 persons. Key-informant interviews and focus group discussions were held. Results indicated a significant positive relationship between Situational factors and treatment seeking behavior (r = 296**, p ≤ 0.0). In conclusion, when an individual suspects to have malaria through personal assessment of the attendant feelings from signs and symptoms, what immediately comes to mind are the situational elements like distance to the health facility and cost of treatment. It is recommended that health communicators should address situational factors which, according to this study are mainly costs-related. If it is distance, messages should mirror the advantages of distance in order to change behavior in that direction.

Situational Factors, Treatment Seeking Behavior, Malaria

Ahimbisibwe, F.B., Matagi, L., Mwijukye, O.A., Atuhaire, P., Alinda, L.C. and Senkumba, M. (2023) Situational Factors: The Ever Present Bottlenecks in Efforts to Improve Personal Treatment Seeking-Behavior Regarding Malaria in Uganda. Open Access Library Journal, 10, 1-10. doi: 10.4236/oalib.1110567.