a cross-sectional study on factors influencing health services utilisation for under-five morbidities in south bengaluru

Background: world health organization (who) estimates that seeking prompt and appropriate healthcare could reduce child deaths by nearly 30%. in this background, the present study was conducted to 1. assess the health services utilization for diarrhoea and ari (acute respiratory infections) among under-5 children in south bengaluru, 2. determine the factors influencing mothers for utilization of health services. methods: authors conducted a cross-sectional study in 10 randomly selected wards of south bengaluru from july, 2019 to january, 2020 using multistage sampling. 432 mothers with under-5 children were interviewed regarding morbidities of their children in the previous one month and the health services they utilised, using a semi-structured questionnaire derived from multiple indicator cluster survey (mics) by unicef. data were analysed using spss 21.0 for descriptive statistics and logistic regression. results: 95 of the participants had illnesses in the past one month; but, only 41 had used health facilities for treatment, mainly in the private sector (68.3%). the reasons for non-utilization of healthcare services were negligence (36.9%), long waiting time at the center (22.4%), financial constraints (20.4%) and mothers’ jobs (9.6%). the most significant factors influencing the health services utilisation were: literacy status of the mother (predisposing factor), low socio-economic status/ bpl (below poverty line) families (enabling factor), and severity of symptoms (need factor). conclusion: utilisation of healthcare services for under-five morbidities in the studied population was inadequate. the influencing factors have to be addressed on a priority basis to fulfil the goal of universal health coverage.