Health seeking behavior and associated factors for childhood illness in Nekemte town, West Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Despite progress made to treat acute common childhood illnesses in recent years still Diarrhoea and ARI are among the five leading causes of infant mortality in the developing countries including Ethiopia. Now a day the traditional trend which consider provision of health care as primarily domain of health providers is slowly changed to current trend which fully recognized the importance of mothers and the family in identifying, caring for and preventing children's illnesses. Objective: This study intends to assess health seeking behavior and its associated factors for childhood illnesses at household level in Nekemte town. Method: Community based cross-sectional study was conducted in Nekemte town, Eastern Wollega Zone, Oromia Regional State, west Ethiopia from September 14-30, 2013 among randomly selected 413 households using structured and pre-tested questionnaire and qualitative methods. Analysis was done using SPSS version 16.0. Descriptive, bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to show frequency distributions and associations. Result: A total of 403 mothers or caretakers were involved in the study giving an overall response rate of 97%. The study showed all children included in the study had history of illness in their life. The overall appropriate health care seeking for the recent illness was only 112 (31.3%) which means taken to health facilities either public or private within 24 hours. Perceived illness was not serious 18 (40%) thought getting well without treatment 18 (40%), Lack of money 6 (13.4%) and lack of time 3 (6.6%) were the major reasons for not seeking care. Educational status (OR=2.85, 95% CI (1.09, 7.46), income (OR= 3.13, 95% CI (1.27, 7.71) and source of information (OR 95% CI: 0.12(0.015, 0.873)) were identified as the major predictors of appropriate health care seeking practices. Conclusion and recommendation: There was low appropriate health care seeking practices among mothers or caregivers which might have a significant contribution to malnutrition and child mortality. Educational status and income appeared to be important variables predicting health care seeking behavior. Therefore, health care services should be provided by minimum cost or for free to encourage families with low income. Effective health education strategies to improve mothers’ health care seeking behaviors by reducing misperceptions.