Background Seeking care from traditional healers for injury is a common practice in low- and middle-income countries, including Sudan. As little is known about specific patterns of the practice in the country, we aimed to investigate associated factors and the role of professional injury care availability. Methods We used Sudan Household Health Survey 2010 data from a national stratified multistage cluster sample of 15 000 households. A multivariable Poisson regression (PR) model with robust variance was used to test potential associations of receiving care from a traditional healer in the first week after injury with age, gender, urban/rural residence, wealth index, educational attainment, cause of injury, time of injury occurrence and state-level injury-care bed density. Results Of 1432 injured participants who sought some form of healthcare, 38% received care from a traditional healer. A significant negative association was found with educational attainment, age and wealth. The association between injury-care bed density and receiving care from a traditional healer was consistently evident only when the injury was caused by a road traffic accident (PR = 0.90, 95% CI 0.85 to 0.96). Conclusions Merely increasing the affordability or availability of injury care facilities may not impact reliance on traditional healers for all causes of injury. Therefore, injury care policies need to consider the role of traditional healers as part of the healthcare system.

The findings imply more potential for separate cooking facilities in preventing burns among children in Sudan than does a change in cooking fuel, although more evidence needs to be gathered, particularly around safety practices.