TREATMENT-SEEKING BEHAVIOUR OF MOTHERS FOR CHILDHOOD MALARIA IN NASARAWA STATE, NORTH CENTRAL NIGERIA.

Malaria is one of the primary causes of mortality in children under the age offive years. It is within the context of the need to understand the role of mothers in the treatment of children sufferingf rom malaria in Nasarawa state that this study was carried out to contribute towards the formulation of recommendations for tackling these problems. A multi-stage systematic random sampling technique was adopted and a pre tested structured questionnaire was administered to 1416 representative respondents from six local government areas. Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify the major predictors of appropriate treatment seeking-behaviour. The study findings showed that there are two groups of healthcare providers in the study area; the modern western health and the traditional healthcare practitioners. There were also those who combined traditional medicine with modem medicine. Chemists and local shops were the commonest (81.3%) sources of help when children have malaria. Mothers who were civil servants were 40.4 times more likely to prefer hospital or dispensary for treatment of childhood malaria than those who were into other occupations. Urban mothers were 35.5 times more likely to seek for treatment within 24 hours than rural mothers while mothers with high and medium knowledge of malaria prevention were 36.3 and 6.3 times respectively more likely to report the use of bed-nets than those with low knowledge of malaria prevention. Urban mothers were 3.2 times more likely to use bed-nets as a strategy to avoid malaria in children than their rural counterparts. The study concludes that since local shops/chemists are the most common source of treatment for childhood malaria in the study area, there should be a focus on improving the quality of services that they deliver, through training and effective regulations.