Mothers’ Socioeconomic Differentials and Management of Malaria in Nigeria

About 150 million Nigerians live in areas of intense malaria transmission. Malaria has the greatest prevalence, close to 50% in children aged 6 to 59 months. A review of literatures revealed that more than 80% of malaria episodes received treatment outside of the existing government health care system. This means that treatments are rarely sought at health care facilities and are most often inappropriate or delayed. Reasons underlying these practices range from mothers’ socioeconomic status to difficulty in accessing health care facilities. Therefore, this study re-examined whether mothers’ socioeconomic characteristics and barriers to access health care facilities are major factors that influence mothers’ choice of treatment and delays in seeking treatment of malaria among under-five children in Nigeria. The study used Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey kids recode dataset. The data were analyzed using STATA 12 software. The result showed significant relationship between religion (χ2 = 216.24, p < .05), education (χ2 = 257.55, p < .05), occupation status (χ2 = 21.88, p < .05), wealth index (χ2 = 207.08, p < .05), type of residence (χ2 = 18.56, p < .05), region of residence (χ2 = 350.82, p < .05), and type of treatment sought and delay in seeking treatment for malaria. Also, the likelihood of seeking medical and prompt treatment among mothers with four different barriers is significantly less (odds ratio = 0.53; p < .05; 95% confidence interval = [0.38- 0.75]), when compared with their counterparts without any barrier. The study concluded that mothers` socioeconomic status and access to health care facilities must be improved to ensure appropriate and prompt use of health care facilities for treatment of malaria among under-five children in Nigeria