IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/hepoli/v95y2010i1p62-68.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rural-urban differences in health-seeking for the treatment of childhood malaria in south-east Nigeria

Author

Listed:
  • Okeke, Theodora A.
  • Okeibunor, Joseph C.

Abstract

Objectives To identify the differences in health-seeking for childhood malaria treatment, between urban and rural communities in Nigeria, with a view to providing information to policy makers that will be used to improve malaria control.Methods Quantitative and qualitative research methods were employed in eliciting information. A pre-tested structured questionnaire was administered to 1200 caretakers of children under 5 years who had malaria 2 weeks prior to the survey period. Focus group discussions were held with mothers and in-depth interviews with health care providers.Results Health-seeking for malaria, differed significantly between rural and urban mothers. While majority (64.7%) of urban caretakers patronized private/government health facilities, most (62%) of their rural counterparts resorted to self-treatment with drugs bought over-the-counter, from patent medicine vendors. Hospitals were geographically more accessibility to urban than rural dwellers. Rural mothers only go to hospital when the problem persists or becomes worse, which results in delay in seeking appropriate and timely care.Conclusion Urban and rural mothers differed in their responses to childhood fevers. Training drug vendors and caretakers are important measures to improve malaria control. Health facilities with good quality services and readily available drugs should be provided.

Suggested Citation

  • Okeke, Theodora A. & Okeibunor, Joseph C., 2010. "Rural-urban differences in health-seeking for the treatment of childhood malaria in south-east Nigeria," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 62-68, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:95:y:2010:i:1:p:62-68
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168-8510(09)00290-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hays, Susan M. & Kearns, Robin A. & Moran, Warren, 1990. "Spatial patterns of attendance at general practitioner services," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 31(7), pages 773-781, January.
    2. Oshiname, Frederick O. & Brieger, William R., 1992. "Primary care training for patent medicine vendors in rural Nigeria," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 1477-1484, December.
    3. Baume, Carol & Helitzer, Deborah & Kachur, S. Patrick, 2000. "Patterns of care for childhood malaria in Zambia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 51(10), pages 1491-1503, November.
    4. Bermejo, Alvaro & Bekui, Amenuve, 1993. "Community participation in disease control," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 1145-1150, May.
    5. Tanner, Marcel & Vlassoff, Carol, 0. "Treatment-seeking behaviour for malaria: A typology based on endemicity and gender," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 46(4-5), pages 523-532, February.
    6. Thaddeus, Sereen & Maine, Deborah, 1994. "Too far to walk: Maternal mortality in context," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 1091-1110, April.
    7. Haddad, Slim & Fournier, Pierre & Machouf, Nimâ & Yatara, Fassinet, 1998. "What does quality mean to lay people? Community perceptions of primary health care services in Guinea," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 381-394, August.
    8. Deon Filmer & Lant Pritchett, 1999. "The Effect of Household Wealth on Educational Attainment: Evidence from 35 Countries," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 25(1), pages 85-120, March.
    9. Espino, Fe & Manderson, Lenore, 2000. "Treatment seeking for malaria in Morong, Bataan, The Philippines," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 50(9), pages 1309-1316, May.
    10. Parker, Robert L., 1986. "Health care expenditures in a rural Indian community," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 23-27, January.
    11. McCombie, S. C., 1996. "Treatment seeking for malaria: A review of recent research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 43(6), pages 933-945, September.
    12. Onwujekwe, Obinna & Chima, Reginald & Okonkwo, Paul, 2000. "Economic burden of malaria illness on households versus that of all other illness episodes: a study in five malaria holo-endemic Nigerian communities," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 143-159, November.
    13. Igun, U. A., 1987. "Why we seek treatment here: Retail pharmacy and clinical practice in Maiduguri, Nigeria," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 24(8), pages 689-695, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Colvin, Christopher J. & Smith, Helen J. & Swartz, Alison & Ahs, Jill W. & de Heer, Jodie & Opiyo, Newton & Kim, Julia C. & Marraccini, Toni & George, Asha, 2013. "Understanding careseeking for child illness in sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review and conceptual framework based on qualitative research of household recognition and response to child diarrhoea, ," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 66-78.
    2. Ralf Krumkamp & Nimako Sarpong & Benno Kreuels & Lutz Ehlkes & Wibke Loag & Norbert Georg Schwarz & Hajo Zeeb & Yaw Adu-Sarkodie & Jürgen May, 2013. "Health Care Utilization and Symptom Severity in Ghanaian Children – a Cross-Sectional Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(11), pages 1-1, November.
    3. Sima Berendes & Olusegun Adeyemi & Edward Adekola Oladele & Olusola Bukola Oresanya & Festus Okoh & Joseph J Valadez, 2012. "Are Patent Medicine Vendors Effective Agents in Malaria Control? Using Lot Quality Assurance Sampling to Assess Quality of Practice in Jigawa, Nigeria," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(9), pages 1-9, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eve Worrall, 2009. "The Relationship Between Socio-Economic Status and Malaria: A Review of the Literature," Working Papers id:2021, eSocialSciences.
    2. Filmer,Deon P., 2002. "Fever and its treatment among the more and less poor in Sub-Saharan Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2798, The World Bank.
    3. Tanser, Frank & Gijsbertsen, Brice & Herbst, Kobus, 2006. "Modelling and understanding primary health care accessibility and utilization in rural South Africa: An exploration using a geographical information system," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 691-705, August.
    4. Ahmed, Shakil & Khan, M. Mahmud, 2011. "Is demand-side financing equity enhancing? Lessons from a maternal health voucher scheme in Bangladesh," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(10), pages 1704-1710, May.
    5. Gayen, Kaberi & Raeside, Robert, 2007. "Social networks, normative influence and health delivery in rural Bangladesh," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(5), pages 900-914, September.
    6. Maurice Mutisya & Moses W. Ngware & Caroline W. Kabiru & Ngianga-bakwin Kandala, 2016. "The effect of education on household food security in two informal urban settlements in Kenya: a longitudinal analysis," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 8(4), pages 743-756, August.
    7. Lídia Farré, 2013. "The Role of Men in the Economic and Social Development of Women: Implications for Gender Equality," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 28(1), pages 22-51, February.
    8. Kempter, Elisabeth & Upadhayay, Neha Bhardwaj, 2022. "Uncovering the role of education in the uptake of preventive measures against Malaria in the African population," University of Tübingen Working Papers in Business and Economics 155, University of Tuebingen, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, School of Business and Economics.
    9. Rossi, Pauline & Villar, Paola, 2020. "Private health investments under competing risks: Evidence from malaria control in Senegal," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    10. Ferry Prasetyia, 2019. "The role of local government policy on secondary school enrolment decision in Indonesia," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 9(2), pages 139-172, June.
    11. Anne Case & Alicia Menendez & Cally Ardington, 2005. "Health Seeking Behavior in Northern KwaZulu-Natal," Working Papers 165, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Research Program in Development Studies..
    12. Sheetal Sharma & Edwin van Teijlingen & José M Belizán & Vanora Hundley & Padam Simkhada & Elisa Sicuri, 2016. "Measuring What Works: An Impact Evaluation of Women’s Groups on Maternal Health Uptake in Rural Nepal," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(5), pages 1-16, May.
    13. Kathleen J. Brown & Roos Haer & Gudrun Østby, 2023. "Local Food Price Volatility and School Dropout in Sub‐Saharan Africa," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 49(3), pages 443-468, September.
    14. Minhaj Ul Haque & Munawar Sultana, 2003. "Coming of Age in Contemporary Pakistan: Influences of Gender and Poverty," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 42(4), pages 643-668.
    15. Shareen Joshi & T. Paul Schultz, 2007. "Family Planning as an Investment in Development: Evaluation of a Program's Consequences in Matlab, Bangladesh," Working Papers 951, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    16. Abderrahman Yassine & Fatima Bakass, 2022. "Do Education and Employment Play a Role in Youth’s Poverty Alleviation? Evidence from Morocco," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-25, September.
    17. Kusuma, Dian & Cohen, Jessica & McConnell, Margaret & Berman, Peter, 2016. "Can cash transfers improve determinants of maternal mortality? Evidence from the household and community programs in Indonesia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 10-20.
    18. Ahmed S Rahman & Mohammad Rafiqul Islam & Tracey P Koehlmoos & Mohammad Jyoti Raihan & Mohammad Mehedi Hasan & Tahmeed Ahmed & Charles P Larson, 2014. "Impact of NGO Training and Support Intervention on Diarrhoea Management Practices in a Rural Community of Bangladesh: An Uncontrolled, Single-Arm Trial," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(11), pages 1-9, November.
    19. Alfredo Paloyo & Arndt Reichert, 2017. "Biting Back at Malaria: Assessing Health-service Providers' Compliance with Treatment Guidelines," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 591-626, August.
    20. Dodoo, F. Nii-Amoo & Zulu, Eliya M. & Ezeh, Alex C., 2007. "Urban-rural differences in the socioeconomic deprivation-Sexual behavior link in Kenya," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(5), pages 1019-1031, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:95:y:2010:i:1:p:62-68. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/healthpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.