Acute respiratory infections--Mothers' perceptions of etiology and treatment in South-Western Nigeria

The focus of this research was on what mothers do when their children suffer from ARI at household level in rural settlements in Oyo State, Nigeria. A total of 419 mothers were interviewed. The study has combined three research methods, namely semi-structured questionnaire, in-depth interview and focus group discussion to get an insight into their perceptions in relation to cause and treatment of the disease. Most mothers regard ARI episodes as ordinary coughs and colds. They strongly believe that these are mostly caused by exposure to cold and perceive coldness of the body as a causal 'agent', whereas none of them mention viral or bacterial agents. The reported dominating practice of mothers was either the use of irritants to get rid of the cause of the disease ('coldness') through vomiting, by forcing the child to swallow bitter remedies such as cow urine, or to use a remedy with warming and soothing properties. 'Robb', a methyl salicylate--probably the most popular Nigerian ointment-appeared to be the drug of choice to 'warm the chest, both from outside and inside', either applied topically or dissolved in hot water to drink. The paper emphasizes the importance of behavioural and social science type studies to get closer to community perceptions of disease etiology and practices as a prerequisite for contextualized health education. The use of inappropriate administration of remedies should be discouraged. Marketing of medicinal drug products for inappropriate indications also needs to be controlled.