Abstract
Background: In Ethiopia, the burden of malaria continues to cause a substantial number of morbidity and mortality. Communities’ practices of malaria prevention and control methods contribute immensely to sustainable control of malaria. This evidence is quite limited in the study area. Hence, this study aimed to assess Practice of malaria prevention and control methods and associated factors among rural household in west belessa district, northwest Ethiopia, 2019. Method: Community-based cross-sectional mixed quantitative and qualitative study was conducted from April to June 2019, in West Belessa district, North West Ethiopia. Multistage sampling was used to select a 740 sample size. A structured questionnaire was used for the quantitative component and a semi-structured questionnaire for the qualitative component. Quantitative data collected by interviewing and qualitative data using focus group discussion. Quantitative data was coded and entered using Epi info software and analyzed using SPSS. The binary logistic regression model was fitted to identify the associated factors. Odds Ratio with 95% Confidence Interval was used to assess the strength of association. The qualitative data was transcribed manually using the thematic approach.Result: A total 738 subjects included with 99.7% response rate. 50.9% of respondents had good practice of malaria prevention and control methods. LLINs and IRS were practiced by 21.1% and 80.5% respectively. Poorest wealth quintiles [AOR = 0.45, 95% CI: 0.27, 0.76], poor wealth quintiles [AOR=0.51, 95% CI: 0.30, 0.88], medium wealth quintiles [AOR = 0.24, 95% CI: 0.14, 0.42] and wealthy wealth quintile [AOR = 0.21, 95% CI: 0.12, 0.36], living in Menti Kebele [AOR = 3.88, 95% CI: 2.43,6.20], female sex [AOR = 0.65, 95% CI: 0.47, 0.90], illiterate educational status [AOR = 0.34, 95% CI 0.16, 0.72] knowledge level poor [AOR = 0.52, 95% CI: 0.36, 0.75] were significantly associated with good malaria prevention practice. All of the FGD participants participated at least one malaria prevention method. Conclusion: There were good IRS and environmental management malaria prevention practices, however, LLINs and other malaria prevention methods were poorly practiced. Wealth index, respondents living kebele, female sex, educational status, and respondents’ malaria prevention knowledge are predictors for the practice of malaria prevention.