Health Seeking Behavior on Child Care Among Fishermen Community of Kovalam Village, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract

While progress has been made to reduce under-five mortality in India from 52 to 39 per thousand live births by 2015 to meet Millennium Development Goal, it is unequally distributed between regions and remains insufficient to reach by 2015. Further, fishermen community possesses unique characteristics features, and remains homogeneous in socioeconomic and cultural matters. Objectives: 1) To assess the health seeking behaviour of parents for child care in children under five years of age among the fisherman community of Kovalam. 2) To assess the factors associated with health seeking behaviour among the above mentioned population. Material and methods: This was a descriptive cross sectional study conducted among 260 parents of children under five years of age in fishermen community with six months recall period in Kovalam, India during May to October, 2014 using pretested semi-structured questionnaire. Results: Prevalence of common childhood illness in the previous six months was 93.46% for ARI, 77.69% for ADD, and 69.23% for fever. Majority of them took their sick children (90.82%) immediately to health care facility especially. Conclusion: Health seeking behaviour among parents of children of this specific population was fairly adequate but the prevalence of childhood illnesses was quite high which needs further evaluation.

Keywords

• Childhood illnesses
• Immunization
• Hospital