Community referral in home management of malaria in western Uganda: A case series study

Table 1 Mothers' reported symptoms prompting care seeking and referral reasons recorded by Drug Distributors

Symptom	Mothers' reporting (n = 101)	DD's reporting (n = 101)
	n (%)*	n (%)*
Fever	94 (93%)	-
No recovery/persisting fever	-	32 (32%)
General illness symptoms	86 (85%)	2 (2%)
Cough	67 (66%)	9 (9%)
Not able to eat/breast feed	55 (54%)	4 (4%)
Vomiting	36 (36%)	11 (11%)
Fast breathing	24 (32%)†	-
'Ekyikenyera'^‡	30 (30%)	4 (4%)
Diarrhoea	25 (25%)	6 (6%)
Convulsion	14 (14%)	15 (15%)
Over/under age	-	5 (5%)
Unable to sit or stand	-	2 (2%)
Loss of consciousness	-	1 (1%)
Other conditions^#	16 (16%)	24 (24%)

*Many children had more than one symptom and received more than one diagnosis by the DD, therefore percentages add up to more than 100%
†The local terms for fast breathing and difficult breathing were added to the questionnaire at a later stage; hence the percentages are based on a smaller denominator (n = 76)
^‡The local illness 'Ekyikenyera' includes symptoms of grunting, stridor and chest indrawing³
^#Chickenpox (7), conjunctivitis (4), wounds/burns (3), undefined illness (4)

ISSN: 1472-698X