Beyond symptom recognition: care‐seeking for ill newborns in rural Ghana

Abstract

Summaryobjectives To assess newborn care-seeking practices in a rural area of Ghana where most births take place at home in order to inform potential strategies for reducing newborn mortality.methods Qualitative, ethnographic study with quantitative data from a birth cohort collected as part of the surveillance system of an ongoing randomized controlled trial. Data collected comprised 84 h of participant observation (including following an ill newborn through a hospital visit), 14 in-depth interviews with key informants (older mothers and grandmothers), 45 semistructured interviews with mothers, 28 case histories from women who had recently given birth and 32 expert interviews with local health providers. Thirteen focus groups were held with men and women, and narrative histories of newborn deaths were taken from eight women.

Infant illness spanning the antenatal to early neonatal continuum in rural northern Ghana: local perceptions, beliefs and practices

“…An ethnographic study in Ghana found that mothers may not be able to recognize serious illness in their babies, and frequently do not seek care outside the home even when they realize that their child is in seriously illness. 36 Warren 37 published findings from Ethiopia, describing community perceptions and health seeking behavior for newborns. She concluded that families who seek care for their newborns often prefer traditional healers and remedies to skilled health workers because of cultural and religious beliefs, poor access to health facilities (including distance and terrain) and financial barriers.…”

Pediatric out-of-hospital deaths following hospital discharge: a mixed-methods study

“…[13][14][15][16] Previous studies of acute child illnesses indicate that danger symptoms and disease severity are often not recognized by caregivers. [17][18][19] A cross-sectional study in Burkina Faso found that clinically defined diarrhea was recognized by only 55% of caregivers of whom only half then sought care for their child, indicating deficits in the perceived severity of the illness.…”

Neonatal mortality contributors using the three delays audit: a study from Albuluk paediatrics teaching hospital in Sudan

“…Although correlations between mothers' seeking behavior to medical advice and other demographic variables were insignificant as the analysis of our data in this study deduced, other major reasons for delay in seeking care like inability to recognize danger signs, preference of use the traditional medicine, previous bad experiences with health care facilities, financial limitations, and distance from healthcare facilities should be predicted and evaluated as one study in Ghana reported. 16 Considering that the time frame for seeking medical advice is short, decreases maternal knowledge of neonatal danger signs still constituted the major pitfall in this study in more than half of neonatal mortality, while more than third of deaths showed unknown obvious cause behind that (Table 4). 17 Many interventions can be used for elimination of the first delay of decision and to seek medical care and this can be achieved through including neonatal counseling during antenatal care visits, raising awareness of the mothers or caregivers regarding newborn danger signs in any gatherings, or through the different types of social media, and by advocacy for attended deliveries by trained midwives.…”