Factors associated with healthcare seeking for childhood illnesses among mothers of children under five in Chad.

The study revealed that both individual (financial barriers to healthcare access, geographical barriers to healthcare access, marital status, frequency of listening to radio and size of children at birth) and community level factors (community level literacy) are associated with healthcare-seeking behaviour for childhood illnesses in Chad. The government of Chad, through multi-sectoral partnership, should strengthen health systems by removing financial and geographical barriers to healthcare access. Moreover, the government should create favourable conditions to improve the status of mothers and foster their overall socio-economic wellbeing and literacy through employment and education. Other interventions should include community sensitization of cohabiting mothers and mothers with children whose size at birth is large to seek healthcare for their children when they are ill. This can be done using radio as means of information dissemination.