Abstract:
BACK GROUND: Despite the substantial reductions in the number of deaths observed in recent decades, globally
around 10 million children still die every year before reaching their fifth birthday. In Ethiopia, almost half a
million children are dying each year from easily preventable diseases which could be partly due to low level of
health care seeking for both preventive and curative services. The objective of this study was to assess and compare
mothers’ health care seeking behavior and its determinants among urban and rural communities for common
childhood illnesses in Derra District.
METHOD: A community based comparative cross-sectional study was conducted from January 20 to February 30,
2007. A total of 612 mothers of index under five children were selected randomly from urban and rural
communities. Data were collected by interview and analyzed using SPSS for windows version 12.0.1. Descriptive,
bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to show frequency distributions and associations.
RESULTS: A total of 563 mothers were involved in the study giving an overall response rate of 92%. Care was
sought from health facilities only for less than half of sick rural children 48 (43.2%) as compared to urban
41(87.2%). Mothers’ responses and actions were frequently influenced by their perception of severity or worsening
of illness. Lack of money 30 (36%), distances 23 (27.7%) and perception of the illness not being serious 21 (25.3%)
were the major reasons for not seeking care. Residence (OR= 5.58 95%CI, 2.05, 15.2) and knowledge (OR=2.27
95% CI, 1.01, 5.17) were identified as the major predictors of health care seeking practices from health facilities.
CONCLUSION: There was low health care seeking practices particularly among rural mothers which might have
a significant contribution to malnutrition and child mortality. Residence and knowledge appeared to be important
variables predicting health care seeking behavior. Therefore, health care services should be strengthened at
community level through Community Integrated Management of Childhood Illness, Information Education
Communication/Behavioral Change Communication strategies to improve mothers’ health care seeking behaviors
