{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.028864970645792562, 'fraction_numerical': 0.01614481409001957, 'mean_word_length': 5.350931677018633, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Knowledge, attitude and practice towards malaria prevention among school children aged 5 -14 years in sub-saharan Africa - a review of literature

Background: More than 500 million school children around the world are at risk of malaria infection and 200 million live in sub-Saharan Africa. One of the methods of prevention of malaria is increasing knowledge, attitude and practice of schoolchildren about malaria. Objective: The objective of this paper is to review the knowledge, attitude and practice of malaria prevention among schoolchildren in the age group of 5 to 14 years in sub-Saharan Africa. Methods: The search engines which were used to obtain the literature include databases such as PubMed, Hinari, Cinhal, Google scholar, grey literature, and manual search. The articles published between 2010 and 2016 which assessed the knowledge, attitude and/ or practice of malaria among school children were searched using the following key words: knowledge, attitude, practice, insecticide treated net, malaria, schoolchildren, sub-Saharan Africa. 14 articles were obtained. Results: Knowledge of malaria cause and transmission was ranging from 19.2% in Zimbabwe to 85% in Nigeria and the attitude was low. However the age group of the schoolchildren in two countries were different. There are still misconception of malaria cause and transmission in schoolchildren in many countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Studies showed low to moderate level of practice of malaria prevention ranging from 32.4% in Malawi to 67.9% in Kenyan schoolchildren. Conclusion: Knowledge, attitude and practice of malaria remain a problem in schoolchildren of sub-Saharan Africa. There is need for implementation of interventions that will focus on increasing the knowledge levels of malaria among schoolchildren. Altering the perceptions and attitude of schoolchildren in a positive way will enhance best practices towards malaria prevention among schoolchildren. Keywords: Knowledge, Attitude, Practice, Malaria, Prevention, Schoolchildren, sub-Saharan Africa