Asking people directly about preferred health-seeking behaviour yields invalid response: an experiment in south-east Nigeria

Background Various factors determine health-seeking behaviour in south-east Nigeria. This study compared the hypothetical and actual health-seeking behaviour using where people sought malaria treatment as proxy for health-seeking behaviour and determinant of health service utilization. Methods The study was conducted in an urban area and a rural area in the Anambra state, south-east, Nigeria. Multistage sampling method was used to select a minimum sample size of 400 households in each community. Datawere collected on where people would prefer to be treated for malaria if they had malaria and where they actually sought for malaria treatment. Results Hypothetically majority of the people would prefer to use public and private hospitals for treatment of malaria but in reality majority of respondents in both rural and urban areas sought treatment at patent medicine dealers (PMDs) for both adult and childhood malaria. Conclusion There were divergences between what people stated they would have ideally done in treating malaria and what they actually did when malaria occurred. Since PMDs were actually used by consumers of malaria treatment over other providers mainly because of low cost, there is the need to train PMDs to improve the quality of their services.