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Who is to blame? Perspectives of caregivers on barriers to accessing healthcare for the under-fives in Butere District, Western Kenya

BACKGROUND: Kenya, like many developing nations, continues to experience high childhood mortality in spite of the many efforts put in place by governments and international bodies to curb it. This study sought to investigate the barriers to accessing healthcare services for children aged less than f...

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Autores principales: Opwora, Antony S, Laving, Ahmed MR, Nyabola, Lambert O, Olenja, Joyce M
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3096908/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21539746
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-11-272
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author Opwora, Antony S
Laving, Ahmed MR
Nyabola, Lambert O
Olenja, Joyce M
author_facet Opwora, Antony S
Laving, Ahmed MR
Nyabola, Lambert O
Olenja, Joyce M
author_sort Opwora, Antony S
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Kenya, like many developing nations, continues to experience high childhood mortality in spite of the many efforts put in place by governments and international bodies to curb it. This study sought to investigate the barriers to accessing healthcare services for children aged less than five years in Butere District, a rural district experiencing high rates of mortality and morbidity despite having relatively better conditions for child survival. METHODS: Exit interviews were conducted among caregivers seeking healthcare for their children in mid 2007 in all the 6 public health facilities. Additionally, views from caregivers in the community, health workers and district health managers were sought through focus group discussions (FGDs) and key informant interviews (KIs). RESULTS: Three hundred and ninety-seven respondents were surveyed in exit interviews while 45 respondents participated in FGDs and KIs. Some practices by caregivers including early onset of child bearing, early supplementation, and utilization of traditional healers were thought to increase the risk of mortality and morbidity, although reported rates of mosquito net utilization and immunization coverage were high. The healthcare system posed barriers to access of healthcare for the under fives, through long waiting time, lack of drugs and poor services, incompetence and perceived poor attitudes of the health workers. FGDs also revealed wide-spread concerns and misconceptions about health care among the caregivers. CONCLUSION: Caregivers' actions were thought to influence children's progression to illness or health while the healthcare delivery system posed recurrent barriers to the accessing of healthcare for the under-fives. Actions on both fronts are necessary to reduce childhood mortality.
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spelling pubmed-30969082011-05-19 Who is to blame? Perspectives of caregivers on barriers to accessing healthcare for the under-fives in Butere District, Western Kenya Opwora, Antony S Laving, Ahmed MR Nyabola, Lambert O Olenja, Joyce M BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Kenya, like many developing nations, continues to experience high childhood mortality in spite of the many efforts put in place by governments and international bodies to curb it. This study sought to investigate the barriers to accessing healthcare services for children aged less than five years in Butere District, a rural district experiencing high rates of mortality and morbidity despite having relatively better conditions for child survival. METHODS: Exit interviews were conducted among caregivers seeking healthcare for their children in mid 2007 in all the 6 public health facilities. Additionally, views from caregivers in the community, health workers and district health managers were sought through focus group discussions (FGDs) and key informant interviews (KIs). RESULTS: Three hundred and ninety-seven respondents were surveyed in exit interviews while 45 respondents participated in FGDs and KIs. Some practices by caregivers including early onset of child bearing, early supplementation, and utilization of traditional healers were thought to increase the risk of mortality and morbidity, although reported rates of mosquito net utilization and immunization coverage were high. The healthcare system posed barriers to access of healthcare for the under fives, through long waiting time, lack of drugs and poor services, incompetence and perceived poor attitudes of the health workers. FGDs also revealed wide-spread concerns and misconceptions about health care among the caregivers. CONCLUSION: Caregivers' actions were thought to influence children's progression to illness or health while the healthcare delivery system posed recurrent barriers to the accessing of healthcare for the under-fives. Actions on both fronts are necessary to reduce childhood mortality. BioMed Central 2011-05-03 /pmc/articles/PMC3096908/ /pubmed/21539746 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-11-272 Text en Copyright ©2011 Opwora et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Opwora, Antony S
Laving, Ahmed MR
Nyabola, Lambert O
Olenja, Joyce M
Who is to blame? Perspectives of caregivers on barriers to accessing healthcare for the under-fives in Butere District, Western Kenya
title Who is to blame? Perspectives of caregivers on barriers to accessing healthcare for the under-fives in Butere District, Western Kenya
title_full Who is to blame? Perspectives of caregivers on barriers to accessing healthcare for the under-fives in Butere District, Western Kenya
title_fullStr Who is to blame? Perspectives of caregivers on barriers to accessing healthcare for the under-fives in Butere District, Western Kenya
title_full_unstemmed Who is to blame? Perspectives of caregivers on barriers to accessing healthcare for the under-fives in Butere District, Western Kenya
title_short Who is to blame? Perspectives of caregivers on barriers to accessing healthcare for the under-fives in Butere District, Western Kenya
title_sort who is to blame? perspectives of caregivers on barriers to accessing healthcare for the under-fives in butere district, western kenya
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3096908/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21539746
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-11-272
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