الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Globally around to ten million children still die every year before reaching their fifth birthday, mostly among the low and middle income people. Most deaths among children of under-five years are still attributable to just a handful of conditions and are avoidable through existing intervention.
Health-seeking behaviours have the potential to substantially reduce child mortality, in the country where common childhood illnesses are a major problem. Appropriate and prompt care seeking practices have importance to avoid many deaths attributed to delays and not seeking care particularly in developing countries.
The aim of the present work is to improve under-five children health status through assessing the caregiver‘ health seeking behaviour during childhood illness and determine the factors affecting it.
To achieve such aim, a cross-sectional study was conducted on 360 caregivers of under-five children suffered from any symptom during the preceding 14 days of data collection in Munshaat Sultan Village, Menouf District, Menoufia governorate. Data were collected from the 1st of May 2017 till the end of April 2018 using pretested interviewing questionnaire covering the following points: Sociodemographic characteristics of caregivers and their children, caregiver‘s knowledge about danger signs of child illness, illness characteristics (type, perceived severity of illness and duration of illness), health facility characteristics (cost, distance to nearest facility and perceived quality of care, description of HSB (as regards: Type of care, time of seeking care, feeding practice during illness and compliance to drug intake)
The study revealed that about sixty seven percent (67.2%) sought appropriate medical care. Among 360 studied children, 25.8 % sought care at private clinic, 22.8% at PHC, and 18.6 % at public hospitals. Regarding time of care seeking; 37.8 % sought care within 24 hours of the child illness wherever the site of seeking care.
The study showed that about half of children were given the same amount of fluids, as usual, to drink (50.8%). The fluids were increased for only 7.5 % of the ill children. In about half of children, the children were given the same amount of food, as usual, to eat (55%). Many children were fed somewhat less than normal (38.9 %). Only 4.4 % of children were given much less than usual to eat.
Regarding diarrhea, less than half of children (36%) suffered from diarrhea, received good diarrhea management practice and 56% of them received poor management practice.
All caregivers of children received drug were compliant to the drug dose. About three quarter of caregivers (76.7%) were compliant to frequency and about sixty seven percent (66.9%) of children who ended the drug course were compliant to duration.
Regarding caregiver and child characteristics, the study revealed that there was a highly statistically significant difference between caregivers with appropriate and inappropriate care seeking as regards caregivers‘ education, marital status and involvement of caregivers in selecting the place of child treatment. There was a statistically significant difference between caregivers with appropriate and inappropriate care seeking as regards caregivers‘ socioeconomic standard, caregivers‘ knowledge about danger signs of child illness and the child birth order.