Abstract
Background
The under-five mortality rate which is an index of population health continues to be high in sub Saharan Africa, Nigeria and Akwa Ibom state of Nigeria which is the setting for this study. The healthcare seeking behaviour of mothers is an important determinant of illness outcome in children. Thus, the objective of this study was to assess the percentage of mothers of febrile under five children exhibiting appropriate healthcare seeking behaviour and the factors that predict this behaviour.
Methods
This quantitative study was carried out using a self-administered/online structured questionnaire which elicited sociodemographic information from mothers aged 18–49 years with under-five children who had had a fever in the four weeks prior to the study. The variables were subjected to statistical analysis to test for association between appropriate healthcare seeking behaviour and various sociodemographic variables and to identify significant predictors of appropriate healthcare seeking behaviour.
Results
Three hundred and twenty mothers/caregivers were recruited into this study. Only 12.5% of the mothers exhibited appropriate healthcare seeking behaviour. Multivariate analysis identified increasing levels of educational attainment (aOR = 0.18, p = 0.002), increased family size ≥ 7(aOR = 7.03, p = 0.02), increasing average monthly family income (aOR = 3.44, p = 0.027) and the reason proffered for going to the health facility which was to prevent worsening of the condition (aOR = 11.72, p = 0.021) as significant predictors of appropriate healthcare seeking behaviour.
Conclusion
The level of appropriate healthcare seeking behaviour in mothers/caregivers in this study was abysmally low. Social determinants of health amongst other factors were found to be significant predictors of healthcare seeking behaviour.