University of Massachusetts Medical School Faculty Publications

UMMS Affiliation

Department of Quantitative Health Sciences

Publication Date

2013-02-20

Document Type

Article

Subjects

Child, Preschool; Cross-Sectional Studies; Delivery of Health Care; Diarrhea; Female; Focus Groups; Health Services Accessibility; Humans; Infant; Malaria; Male; Parents; Patient Acceptance of Health Care; Pneumonia; Poverty Areas; Qualitative Research; *Rural Population; Sierra Leone

Disciplines

Health Services Administration | International Public Health | Maternal and Child Health | Pediatrics

Abstract

BACKGROUND: To plan for a community case management (CCM) program after the implementation of the Free Health Care Initiative (FHCI), we assessed health care seeking for children with diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia in 4 poor rural districts in Sierra Leone.

METHODS: In July 2010 we undertook a cross-sectional household cluster survey and qualitative research. Caregivers of children under five years of age were interviewed about healthcare seeking. We evaluated the association of various factors with not seeking health care by obtaining adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence limits using a multivariable logistic regression model. Focus groups and in-depth interviews of young mothers, fathers and older caregivers in 12 villages explored household recognition and response to child morbidity.

RESULTS: The response rate was 93% (n=5951). Over 85% of children were brought for care for all conditions. However, 10.8% of those with diarrhoea, 36.5% of those with presumed pneumonia and 41.0% of those with fever did not receive recommended treatment. In the multivariable models, use of traditional treatments was significantly associated with not seeking outside care for all three conditions. Qualitative data showed that traditional treatments were used due to preferences for locally available treatments and barriers to facility care that remain even after FHCI.

CONCLUSION: We found high healthcare seeking rates soon after the FHCI; however, many children do not receive recommended treatment, and some are given traditional treatment instead of seeking outside care. Facility care needs to be improved and the CCM program should target those few children still not accessing care.

Rights and Permissions

Copyright 2013 Diaz et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

DOI of Published Version

10.1186/1471-2458-13-157

Source

Diaz T, George AS, Rao SR, Bangura PS, Baimba JB, McMahon SA, Kabano A. Healthcare seeking for diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia among children in four poor rural districts in Sierra Leone in the context of free health care: results of a cross-sectional survey. BMC Public Health. 2013 Feb 20;13:157. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-13-157. Link to article on publisher's site

Related Resources

Link to Article in PubMed

Journal/Book/Conference Title

BMC public health

PubMed ID

23425576

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