An Exploration of Malaria Medication Decisions Making Process in Tanzania: A Case of Mbeya Region

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore the malaria medication decision making process in Tanzania. An exploratory research design was adopted which helped to discover ideas and insights underlying consumers' decisions on malaria medication. Purposive sampling was used to select 16 participants in this study. The findings from the study revealed that consumers have good knowledge on the causes and treatment of malaria disease. However, consumers were shown to differ in making the decision on malaria medication some consumers visited health centres, others pharmacists, others laboratory technician while others visited traditional medical practitioners. The findings of this study are expected to provide health professional bodies with knowledge about the decision-making process consumers' use while seeking malaria medication. This will help them to improve the health centres hence encourage Tanzanians to utilize them. Also, the findings are expected to provide useful knowledge to policy makers such as TMDA and government in general which will help them to have a productive conversation with traditional medical practitioners about how the traditional medicines are produced. Hence more research could be undertaken to find out the efficacy and standards of the traditional medicines. In addition, these findings are expected to educate Tanzanian consumers on the consequences of applying self - medication in treating malaria.