Health-seeking behaviour for child illness in Guatemala

Relying on data from the 1995 Guatemalan Survey of Family Health (EGSF), we analyse the relationship between child illness and health-seeking behaviou r. Information on illness was collected for 3193 children. This analysis is based on 870 of these who became ill with diarrhoeal or respiratory diseas e during a 13-day period prior to interview. Estimates are derived from log istic models of the probability of seeing any or a specific type of: health care provider as a function of characteristics of the illness on a given d ay and the child. The results indicate that modern medical care plays a maj or role in the treatment of infectious illness among children in rural Guat emala, with visits to pharmacists, doctors and the staff at government heal th facilities occurring much more frequently than visits to curers and othe r traditional practitioners. In general, families are much more likely to s eek out a health care provider when a child experiences fever and gastroint estinal symptoms than when suffering from respiratory and other symptoms, a nd when a mother perceives the illness to be serious. The results also indi cate that infants, low parity children, and children assessed as having gen erally been in good health are more likely to visit health care providers t han other children. However, the particular associations often vary by type of health care provider.