BackgroundRural and urban populations have disparate socio-demographic and economic characteristics, which have an influence on equity and their health seeking behavior. We examined and compared the health care seeking behavior for perceived morbidity between urban and rural households in Southwest Ethiopia.MethodsAnalytic cross-sectional study was conducted among urban and rural households living in Esera district of Southwest Ethiopia. A random sample of 388 head of households (126 urban and 262 rural) were selected. A pretested and structured questionnaire was used for data collection with face-to-face interview. In addition to descriptive methods, binary logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with health seeking behavior at p value of less than 0.05.ResultsOf the sample household heads, 377 (97.2%) (119 urban and 258 rural) were successfully interviewed. Among these, 58.4% (95% CI, 53.3–63.3%) of the households sought care from modern health care that was lower among rural (48.1%) than urban (80.7%) households. The prevalence of self-treatment was 35.3% in urban and 46.1% in rural households. Among the factors considered for modern health care utilization, higher monthly income (AOR, 5.6; 95% CI, 2.04–15.4), perceived severity of disease (AOR, 2.5; 95% CI, 1.1–5.8), acute duration of disease (AOR, 8.9; 95% CI, 2.4–33.3) and short distance from health facilities (AOR, 3; 95% CI, 1.2–8.4) among rural and being married (AOR, 11.3; 95% CI, 1.2–110.2) and perceived severity of disease (AOR, 6.6; 95% CI, 1.1–10.9) among urban households showed statistically significant association.ConclusionsThe general health seeking behavior of households on perceived morbidity was satisfactory but lower in rural compared to urban households. Self-medication was also widely practiced in the study area. The findings signal the need to work more on accessibility and promotion of healthcare seeking behavior especially among rural households.

Background: Widespread epidemics of malaria, yellow fever, meningitis and Tuberculosis across the Sub-Saharan African in the 1990s were largely attributed to poor surveillance systems which were neither able to detect communicable diseases on time nor build up an effective response. Effective communicable disease control relies on effective response systems which are dependent upon effective disease surveillance. Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response strategy (IDSR) was adopted by the AFRO members of the World Health Organization (WHO) to improve surveillance activities. Objective: This study was conducted to assess IDSR implementation in selected Health Facilities of Dawuro zone. Settings and Design: Dawuro zone is located in Southwestern Ethiopia. It shares borders with the Gamo-Gofa zone in south, Wolayta zone in the east, Konta Special district in the west, Oromia region in North, Hadya and Kambata Tembaro Zones in North east. Based on the 2006 census, it has a population of 590,090. A cross-sectional facility based descriptive study was conducted. Materials and Methods: An interviewer administered questionnaire of an adapted from the WHO Protocol for the Assessment of National Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response systems was used. Data analysis was carried out using SPSS version 21. Results: All of the health facilities (38%) have any case definition for the priority diseases. About 43% of the health facilities had electricity. Only seven percent has standby generators, which were functional. All health centers had calculators and stationery available for data management while 36% had computers and but 28% have printers available. No form of data analysis was available in 93% of the health centers, analysis of data were however available in all 14 Health centers studied. A reporting system was available in 92% of health centers. There was no feedback from the region to the district health offices and Health centers, nor was there feedback from the national to the zone level. Conclusion and recommendation: The implementation of IDSR in Dawuro zone is moderate. Resources are insufficient and although some structures are present on ground like the presence of reporting mechanism, feedback is low from the higher to lower levels. Standard case definitions are not used in all health facilities for all priority diseases. Standard case definitions should be made available and used in all health facilities.

Male partners' involvement is a vital issue to prevent human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission from mother to child; because it is much expectable that women were more vulnerable and high risk group of population portion. Therefore, to save lives of mothers and their newborn from acquiring HIV, male partners should do their maximum endeavor regardless of any determinant factors as our results revealed its status in our study context and elsewhere at past time too.

Background: Every pregnancy is risk of having life-threatening obstetric complications. A birth preparedness package promotes active preparation and assists in decision-making for healthcare seeking in case of such complication. Although its importance is fact, it is low in Ethiopia.