Childhood illness prevalence and health seeking behavior of mothers in Faisalabad, Pakistan

Objectives: To explore the health care-seeking practices of caregivers of children and prevalence of illness with the ultimate objective to improve the infant and child health status in Pakistan. Methodology: This descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out among caregivers of under sixteen months of children in two tertiary care hospitals. Two hundred caregivers were interviewed through purposive sampling technique from DHQ and Allied hospital, Faisalabad, Pakistan. Results: More than one third (34% and 44.5%) children had diarrheal disease and fever/cough or flu respectively prior to the two weeks of the survey. A majority of the mothers (58.8%) did not give the ORS during diarrhea and 29.4% gave less fluid or drink in diarrhea. It was found that 12.4% did not get any treatment during the last illness. Data also shows that 47.5% mothers got the medical treatment for their children from informal health care practices, 16% self medication and 8.5% from faith healers. Conclusion: A number of children were affected with diarrhea and fever/cough or flu and appropriate health care seeking practices of mothers for childhood diarrhea and ArI remain a matter of great concern in our area.