Factors affecting health seeking behaviour of mothers for under five years children with acute respiratory infection in a Musahar community.

Thesis Report.

ABSTRACT Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) is considered to be one of the major killer diseases of children worldwide. WHO has estimated that seeking prompt and appropriate care could reduce child deaths due to ARI by twenty percent. A descriptive exploratory study was conducted with the purpose of exploring the factors affecting health seeking behaviour of mothers in a Musahar community. The mothers having child under five years old who had at least one episode of ARI within three months period preceding the data collection in Musahar community of Morang district were the population of the study. Non probability, purposive sampling method was adopted to select 120 samples. Data were collected by interview method using questionnaire on selected socio demographic factors, knowledge on ARI and health seeking behavior of mothers. The data were analyzed by using simple descriptive and inferential statistics i.e. frequency, percentage, and standard deviation to describe the demographic variables and health seeking behaviour. Chi-square test was used to find out the significant association between the concerned variables at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed that mothers below 20 years, primary level education and good knowledge on ARI as well as husbands' occupation as daily wages, middle class economic status, mothers themselves as decision maker in family and health facility within half an hour walking distance had significantly higher percentage of visiting health facility for children with ARI than others. Based on study findings, it is concluded that mothers age, education, knowledge on ARI, occupation of husband, economic status, decision maker of the family, time taken to reach nearby health facility are those factors which affect the health seeking behavior of mothers. So that awareness program about ARI for the mothers is most essential and it is equally important to take measures to raise economic status of the people of musahar community.