Mothers’ Action and Preferences of Treatment of Febrile Illnesses among under- five -year- old Children in Osun State.

Abstract

This study examined the maternal actions and preferences of treatment of febrile illnesses among the under- five- year old children.   Purposive sampling method was used to select 150 respondent comprisingof mothers who brought their children to seven selected health institutions in Osun State. An interview guide was used in the collection of data. The data were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics.Results of the study showed that fever was the main reason for taking action and 122 (81%) had taken first level home care before going to the clinic. As the first line of action 89 (59%) bought drugs from the chemists while only 29(19%) displayed correct knowledge of drug schedules and doses. Respondents’ preferences   increase from 33% as first line of action to 95% as second line of action and 99.3% as the third line of action. It was found that those respondents that had no formal education accounts   for more than half (8.5%) of those that used herbs(14,9%).  Using Pearson product moment correlation analysis, educational status of mothers was also significantly associated with initial treatment of febrile illnesses ( ?2 39.46 P <0.01).  Summarily, these findings showed high prevalence of home treatment and that chemists were the main source of obtaining  drugs.Thus, the study concluded that there is a need for training of mothers on treatment of febrile illnesses especially use of drugs, and the chemists and patent medicine vendors should be exposed to periodical trainings especially on essential drugs for treating febrile illnesses in under five- year -old children.