Abstract:
Background:-Health care seeking behavior has been defined as any action undertaken by
individuals who perceive themselves to have a health problem or to be ill for the purpose of
finding an appropriate remedy. In most developing countries, the health of the children is
strongly dependent on maternal healthcare behavior. Appropriate and prompt health seeking is
critical in the management of childhood illnesses. However, there is scarcity of information
among mothers/caregivers for treatment of common childhood illness.
Objective:-The objective of this study is to determine health care seeking behavior and
associated factors on common childhood illnesses among mothers with under five children from
February 01 to March 01, 2018.
Method:-Community based cross-sectional study was conducted among 611 mothers/caregivers
with under five children who had common childhood illness within two weeks preceding the
survey. Multistage sampling technique was used to select the study participants. Data was
collected by face to face interview using structured questionnaire. The collected data was entered
into Epi Data version 3.02 and exported to SPSS version 20.0 for analysis. Bivariable and
multivariable logistic regression analysis were undertaken to identify the factors associated with
health care seeking. OR and 95% confidence interval was computed.
Results: Of the total sick children with common childhood illness reported, care was sought for
414 (69.9%) 95%CI :( 66.0%, 74.0%) from health facilities. Being urban dwellers (AOR=3.10;
95%CI: 1.10, 9.10), education status of mother being primary school (AOR=4.14; 95%CI: 2.17,
7.89), and perceived severity of the illnesses (AOR=3.21; 95%CI: 1.62, 6.30), were identified as
independent predictors of health care seeking practices from health facilities. Perception that
illness was not serious 54(49.5%) and lack of money16 (14.7%) were the main reasons given for
failure to seek care from health facilities by the mothers.
Conclusion: Although health care was most often sought from health facilities (69.9%),
considerable proportion of mothers, (30.1%) of the sick children were not taken to health
facilities for care. Seeking care from HF’s was delayed (70.1%).Furthermore, residence of
mother’s education status of the mothers, and mothers/caregivers perceptions about severity of
illness were independent predictors of modern health care seeking behavior for childhood
illnesses.
