Utilization of Insecticide Treated Bed Net and Its Associated Factors Among House Holds of Dire Dawa Town, Eastern Ethiopia

Background: Malaria is a parasitic disease spread by female anopheles mosquito bite, results in millions clinical cases globally of which most occur in Sub Saharan Africa. Insecticide treated nets has become simple and effective means of preventing malaria.In Ethiopia, despite the increasing availablity of ITN at house hold level, while its utilization among adult or household heads was unsatisfactory and the factors are not well understood. Objective: To asses" utilization of insecticide treated bed net and its associated factors among households of Dire Dawa town, eastern Ethiopia. Methods: A Community based cross-sectional study design conducted in Dire Dawa town from April to July 2022. Three kebeles and 620 households selected by using simple random sampling technique. Data collected by using pre-tested structured questionnaire. Then, checked for completeness, cleanliness and entered into EPI data version 7 statistical software, and transferred to SPSS version 21 for further analy sis. Both bi-variable and multivariable logistic regression analysis computed to identify associated factors. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis wasdone. P-value <0.05 and odds ratio with 95% confidence interval were used for the determination of associations between dependent and predictor var iables. Results was-stated in narrations, tables, and graph. Results: The prevalence of ITN utilization in the study area was lower than the national target (100%). 558(90%) have ITN, but only 67(12%) of households utilized ITN the night before the data collection day. Nearly 12% of the households were still utilized ITN for malaria prevention and control measures. Age, sex, education, marital status, occupation and income level was significantly associated with ITN utilization. Conclusion and recommendation: comparatively low ITN usage was observed.This Study reveals six significant associated factors of ITN utilization and Low proportion of good knowledge of malaria and utilization of ITNs. Therefore, associated factor focused interventional plan and increasing communities" knowledge towards malaria prevention and control is mandatory. Relatively lower utilization, reversely high ownership had observed. ITN misuse, more likely high (28.2%) were an indicative of low utilization among communities of study area. Therefore, regional health bureu should give more emphasis on the regular supervision and support to capacitate health education and promotion services to maximize good practice of ITN utilization. Similarly maximizing knowledge, towards malaria prevention and control measures through behavioral change communication media that are accessible and appropriate to illiterate groups of population.