Mothers’ health care seeking behavior and associated factors for common childhood illnesses in Ethiopia: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background: Even though healthcare-seeking interventions potentially reduce child mortality from easily treatable diseases, significant numbers of children die without ever reaching a health facility or due to delays in seeking care in Ethiopia. Though there was fragmented evidence on the proportion of mothers' healthcare-seeking behavior and associated factors for common childhood illnesses in Ethiopia, the national level is unknown. Therefore, this systematic review and meta-analysis estimated the pooled proportion of mothers' healthcare-seeking behavior and associated factors in Ethiopia from 2008–2019. Methods: We systematically searched the databases: PubMed/MEDLINE, Google Scholar, and Science Direct for studies conducted in Ethiopia on mothers’ health care seeking behavior since 2008. We have included observational studies, which were published between 2008 and 2019. The report was compiled according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. The quality of included studies was scored based on the Newcastle Ottawa quality assessment scale adapted for cross-sectional studies. The data were extracted in Microsoft excel and analyzed using Stata version 14.1 software. We employed a random-effects model to estimate the pooled proportion of mothers' healthcare-seeking behavior in Ethiopia. The presence of statistical heterogeneity within the included studies was evaluated using the I-squared statistic. We used Egger’s regression test to identify evidence of publication bias. The pooled proportion with a 95% confidence interval (CI) was presented using tables and forest plots. Result: We screened a total of 581 articles. Of these, 14 studies were included in the final systematic review and meta-analysis. In Ethiopia, the pooled proportion of mothers' health care seeking behavior was 50.24% (95% CI: 37.13, 63.35%). Less than 5 kilometers from a health facility (OR, 2.07; 95% CI: 1.50, 2.87), mothers who were aware of common childhood illnesses (OR =2.06; 95% CI: 1.45, 2.91, mothers who had educational levels of primary school and above (OR = 1.82;95% CI: 1.36, 2.43), caregivers at a higher wealth index category (OR = 2.01; 95% CI: 1.33. 3.24) were significantly associated with health care seeking behavior of mothers/caregivers. Conclusion: Overall, in Ethiopia healthcare-seeking behavior of mothers/caregivers for common childhood illnesses is low. Awareness, perceived illness severity, distance from a health care facility, and mothers/caregivers’ level of education were predictors of mothers' healthcare-seeking behavior. Accordingly, increasing the proximity of health facilities and educate mothers/caregivers about the importance of healthcare-seeking behavior were recommended to improve healthcare-seeking behavior.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.019 | 0.041 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.019 | 0.042 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.010 | 0.009 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".