Abstract
About 150 million Nigerians live in areas of intense malaria transmission. Malaria has the greatest prevalence, close to 50% in children aged 6 to 59 months. A review of literatures revealed that more than 80% of malaria episodes received treatment outside of the existing government health care system. This means that treatments are rarely sought at health care facilities and are most often inappropriate or delayed. Reasons underlying these practices range from mothers’ socioeconomic status to difficulty in accessing health care facilities. Therefore, this study re-examined whether mothers’ socioeconomic characteristics and barriers to access health care facilities are major factors that influence mothers’ choice of treatment and delays in seeking treatment of malaria among under-five children in Nigeria. The study used Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey kids recode dataset. The data were analyzed using STATA 12 software. The result showed significant relationship between religion (χ2 = 216.24, p < .05), education (χ2 = 257.55, p < .05), occupation status (χ2 = 21.88, p < .05), wealth index (χ2 = 207.08, p < .05), type of residence (χ2 = 18.56, p < .05), region of residence (χ2 = 350.82, p < .05), and type of treatment sought and delay in seeking treatment for malaria. Also, the likelihood of seeking medical and prompt treatment among mothers with four different barriers is significantly less (odds ratio = 0.53; p < .05; 95% confidence interval = [0.38- 0.75]), when compared with their counterparts without any barrier. The study concluded that mothers` socioeconomic status and access to health care facilities must be improved to ensure appropriate and prompt use of health care facilities for treatment of malaria among under-five children in Nigeria.
Highlights
Malaria poses a major public health challenge as the third leading cause of death among under-five children worldwide
From the sampling frame of 33,385 of all married women interviewed in Nigeria, 18,028 women with at least a child aged 12 to 59 years were extracted, out of which 3,068 women whose child has had at least an history of malaria episode in the last 2 weeks before the survey were extracted for this study having applied the weighting factor
The significant relationship found between religion, medical choice of treating malaria, and prompt treatment of malaria corroborate earlier findings by Adamu (2001), Addai (2000), and Adetunji (1996), as this study revealed that Islamic mothers and those in the other religion are significantly less likely to give medical and prompt treatment to their children during malaria illness when compared with their Christian counterparts
Summary
Malaria poses a major public health challenge as the third leading cause of death among under-five children worldwide. World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 216 million cases of malaria occurred in 2010, 81% in the African region that resulted in 655,000 malaria deaths in 2010, and 86% were children under 5 years of age (WHO, 2010). Thirty countries in sub-Saharan Africa account for 90% of global malaria deaths. Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, and Uganda account for nearly 50% of the global malaria deaths. Malaria is the second leading cause of death from infectious diseases in Africa, after HIV/AIDS, and the third leading cause of death for children after pneumonia and diarrheal disease worldwide (U.S Agency for International Development [USAID]/ President’s Malaria Initiative [PMI], 2011)
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