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Background  Since malaria is one of the foremost public health problems in Iran, a malaria elimination phase has been initiated and application of long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) is an important strategy for control. Success and effectiveness of this community based strategy largely dependent on proper use of LLINs. In this context, to determine the community’s knowledge and practices about malaria and LLINs, a study was conducted in Rudan County, one of the important malaria endemic areas in southeast of Iran.    Methods  In this cross-sectional study, 400 households in four villages were selected by cluster randomly sampling method. Community knowledge and practices about malaria and LLINs including symptoms and transmission of malaria and washing, drying and using of bed nets were investigated using pre-tested structured questionnaires. The data were analysed using SPSS.16 software.    Results  In this study nearly 89% of the respondents knew at least one symptom of malaria and 86.8% considered malaria as an important disease. The majority of respondents (77.8%) believed that malaria transmits through mosquito bite and 72.5% mentioned stagnated water as a potential mosquito breeding place. About 46% of respondents mentioned the community health worker as the main source of their information about malaria. Approximately 44.8% of studied population washed the LLINs once in six months and 92% of them mentioned that they dry the bed nets in direct sunlight. While 94% of households reported they received one or more LLINs by government and 60.8% of respondents mentioned that LLINs were the main protective measure against malaria, only 18.5% of households slept under bed nets the night before the survey, this use rate is lower than the targeted coverage (80%) which is recommended by World Health Organization.    Conclusion  Although, majority of studied population were aware of the symptoms and cause of malaria, a majority had misconceptions about LLINs. Therefore, appropriate educational intervention by trained health workers should be developed for a behaviour change and motivating people to use LLINs which would improve malaria elimination programme.    Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1475-2875-13-511) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Community knowledge and practices regarding malaria and long-lasting insecticidal nets during malaria elimination programme in an endemic area in Iran