The recognition of and care seeking behaviour for childhood illness in developing countries: a systematic review

Pneumonia, diarrhoea, and malaria are among the leading causes of death in children. These deaths are largely preventable if appropriate care is sought early. This review aimed to determine the percentage of caregivers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with a child less than 5 years who we...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2014-04, Vol.9 (4), p.e93427-e93427
Main Authors: Geldsetzer, Pascal, Williams, Thomas Christie, Kirolos, Amir, Mitchell, Sarah, Ratcliffe, Louise Alison, Kohli-Lynch, Maya Kate, Bischoff, Esther Jill Laura, Cameron, Sophie, Campbell, Harry
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Bacterial pneumonia
Behavior
Care and treatment
Caregivers
Child
Child Health Services
Child mortality
Children
Children & youth
Childrens health
Communities
Developing Countries
Diagnosis
Diarrhea
Fever
Health aspects
Health care
Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
Health sciences
Humans
Illnesses
Kenya
LDCs
Literature reviews
Malaria
Medical personnel
Medicine and Health Sciences
Mortality
Nigeria
Nutrition research
Patient Acceptance of Health Care
Physical Sciences
Pneumonia
Public health
Recognition
Rehydration
Research and Analysis Methods
Reviews
Risk factors
Rural areas
Studies
Systematic review
Therapy
Vector-borne diseases
Workers
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Summary:Pneumonia, diarrhoea, and malaria are among the leading causes of death in children. These deaths are largely preventable if appropriate care is sought early. This review aimed to determine the percentage of caregivers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with a child less than 5 years who were able to recognise illness in their child and subsequently sought care from different types of healthcare providers. We conducted a systematic literature review of studies that reported recognition of, and/or care seeking for episodes of diarrhoea, pneumonia or malaria in LMICs. The review is registered with PROSPERO (registration number: CRD42011001654). Ninety-one studies met the inclusion criteria. Eighteen studies reported data on caregiver recognition of disease and seventy-seven studies on care seeking. The median sensitivity of recognition of diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia was low (36.0%, 37.4%, and 45.8%, respectively). A median of 73.0% of caregivers sought care outside the home. Care seeking from community health workers (median: 5.4% for diarrhoea, 4.2% for pneumonia, and 1.3% for malaria) and the use of oral rehydration therapy (median: 34%) was low. Given the importance of this topic to child survival programmes there are few published studies. Recognition of diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia by caregivers is generally poor and represents a key factor to address in attempts to improve health care utilisation. In addition, considering that oral rehydration therapy has been widely recommended for over forty years, its use remains disappointingly low. Similarly, the reported levels of care seeking from community health workers in the included studies are low even though global action plans to address these illnesses promote community case management. Giving greater priority to research on care seeking could provide crucial evidence to inform child mortality programmes.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0093427