CONTACT US: Contact info
|
Citation |
Sakisaka K, Jimba M, Hanada K. BMC Int. Health Hum. Rights 2010; 10(online): 10. |
|
Affiliation |
Takemi Program in International Health, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts USA. sakisaka@m.u-tokyo.ac.jp. |
|
Copyright |
(Copyright © 2010, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group - BMC) |
|
DOI |
|
PMID |
20515485 |
|
PMCID |
|
|
Abstract |
BACKGROUND: In 2008, approximately 8.8 million children under 5 years of age died worldwide. Most of these deaths occurred in developing countries, but little is known about poor mothers' care-seeking behaviors for their children.We examined poor mothers' care-seeking behaviors in response to childhood illness, and identified factors affecting their choices. We also assessed mothers' perception of the medical services and their confidence in the health care available for their children. METHODS: We carried out a community-based cross-sectional study with structured questionnaires. Participants were 756 mothers and their young children (0-23 months) in Nandaime municipality, Granada province, Nicaragua. We took the children's anthropometric measurements and we assessed the mothers according to their income. We divided them into 3 global absolute poverty categories (income: <1 USD/day, 1-2 USD/day, >2 USD/day), and 4 quintile. RESULTS: When a child showed symptoms of illness, most mothers (>75%) selected public health facilities as their first choice. More than half (>58%) were satisfied with the medical services, but the poorest mothers expressed more dissatisfaction (p = 0.003), when we divided the participants into 4 quintiles groups according to their income. In the poorest group, the main reasons for dissatisfaction were cost (46.6%), and distance to the facilities (25.8%). Almost half (41.3%) of mothers lacked confidence in the health care offered to their child, while most of the wealthiest mothers (75.7%) did have confidence in it (p = 0.001). The poorest mothers showed greater interest in health education than the wealthiest (86.2% vs. 77.8%) (p = 0.015). We found that poor mothers ( Language: en |