Caregiver reasons for tertiary health‐care seeking for children aged ≤12 years

Abstract

Despite common use of primary health-care systems, with regard to tertiary hospital presentation, the most important factors for preferring tertiary hospital presentation were caregiver trust in tertiary hospital resources for diagnosis and treatment.

Cost of Caregivers for Treating Hospitalized Diarrheal Patients in Bangladesh

“…Like previous studies [17,19,33,44,45] we also observed that households from the poorest quintile spent less than richest quintile because of their affordability but faced highest cost burden than richest quintile although the diarrheal prevalence are the highest among household members of the poorest quintile [17,18]. For such consequences, many diarrheal cases are inadequately managed at household level which eventually pushes them to the point where the patients’ life is endangered [47].…”

“…In another earlier study to this context, it was shown that healthcare seeking behaviour of households were quite different regarding their young members when exposed diarrheal infections and they were often taken to the private providers or clinics (e.g., private practitioners) before hospitalization which was not observed for adult patients [33]. Furthermore, household members particularly parents became terrified and worried when they found their young family members are at risk of ill-health which is reflected in their direct and indirect costs as both the time and in-person involvement required are generally comparatively more for children than adult patients [19].…”

“…The aim of this study was to analyse the caregivers’ cost associated with the diarrheal treatment. In the study caregivers can be mother, father, spouses, descendants, siblings or close relative, who have no training in child health or education except their own experience and accompany during the hospitalization and aged 18 and above [19]. To estimate the cost of caregivers, both direct and indirect costs were captured.…”

“…Although diarrheal diseases can be managed by low-cost interventions, however, an earlier study observed that about 75% of the under five children receive treatments from formal healthcare providers [18]. However, the treatment seeking pattern for diarrheal disease varies to a greater extent for children than for adults as children frequently visit the local private practitioners before hospitalization which eventually is reflected in its treatment costs [18,19].…”

Occurrence of patients compared in a pediatric practice and pediatric hospital outpatient clinic

“…Caregivers can choose all levels of health-care providers for child health problems. The study of Yaprak et al (2016) shows that the most common reason for choosing the university hospital of Izmir was the availability of allegedly necessary tests (88.1% of 235 caregivers) and the expectance of a correct diagnosis (64.7% of 235 caregivers). Of 235 caregivers, 38.7% were worried about the aggravation of a disease.…”