Determinants of Mothers Health Seeking Behaviour for Their Children in a Nigerian Teaching Hospital.

Abstract

Ladoke Akintola Teaching Hospital, Ogbomoso. 3 Abstract: This is a descriptive study on determinant of health seeking behaviour of mothers for their children. The study examined the relationships between mother' age, occupation , support they received on their health seeking behaviour for their children as well as the type of health care institutions that they preferred to seek care for their children when sick. One hundred and fifty nursing mothers were recruited from child welfare clinic A semi structured questionnaire was used to elicit the respondents' opinion, while the analysis was done with the use of at a significant level of 0.05 This study reveals that majority of the mothers 54 (36%) were between 31 and 35 years, while 62 (41.3%) of the mothers brought their first born child. Most of the mothers preferred to take their children to government health institutions when sick, while only few of the mothers preferred mission hospital. The study also shows that mothers' occupation had no significant effect on when their perception as to when children should be taken to the hospital for treatment (P = 0.05). Income or finance is a strong determinant for the mothers to seek care for their children In addition, age of the mother exerted a significant relationship on their perception as to when children should be taken for health care (P = 0.04). While type of support (P = 0.07) and level of support mothers received from their husbands (P = 0.27) had no significant influences on the type of health institution preferred by the mothers to seek care for their children.