A GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEY OF DETERMINANTS OF HOUSEHOLDS’ CHOICES OF DIARRHOEA TREATMENTS FOR UNDER-FIVE AGE IN SOME SELECTED WARDS OF URBAN KATSINA

The last decades have witnessed the introduction of geography in diverse public health settings. Even though geographers had long enough study epidemiology when the famous John Snow investigated London’s cholera outbreak in 1854 about 159 years ago, paradigm shift preludes the use of its approach in the science of diseases transfer. The aim of the study is to examine the reasons behind the choice of diarrhoea treatments for under-five age children among 394 respondents who were sampled using systematic sampling technique in selected wards of urban Katsina. These respondents were sampled from 5914 households (sampling frames) of Rahamawa, Barhim Estate and GRA wards drawn using multi-stage sampling technique in urban Katsina. Semi structured questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. The study found out that the majority of respondents seek health at home using self-administered drugs such as Flagyl and ORS as well as herbal preparations and Islamic remedies. The reasons were because the medicines are not always accessible in the clinics/hospital and lack of money to pay for drugs despite ‘free medical programme of the government’. It is recommended that government should checkmate its drugs services, subsidies costly ones and educate people on the dangers of self-medication through household campaigns and mass education.