Social and cultural features of cholera and shigellosis in peri-urban and rural communities of Zanzibar

BMC Infectious Diseases

Table 5 Self treatment and help seeking for a cholera vignette in peri-urban and rural Zanzibar, n = 356

	Peri-urban site, n = 179				Rural site, n = 177
	How reported?^b				How reported?^b
Category^a	Total reported %	Fraction spon.	Most helpful %	Mean prominence^c	Total reported %	Fraction spon.	Most helpful %	Mean prominence^c
Self treatment at home
Antibiotics/drugs	44.7	0.26	15.6	1.03	72.3	0.14	24.9	1.57	***
Doing nothing at home	27.9	1.00	22.9	1.25	19.8	1.00	4.5	0.53	**
Drinking more water or liquids	68.7	0.45	19.6	1.58	69.5	0.10	9.6	1.05	**
Herbal treatment	49.7	0.75	14.0	1.29	83.1	0.73	28.8	2.31	***
Oral rehydration therapy/solution	59.8	0.28	21.2	1.40	72.9	0.07	23.7	1.49
Prayers	55.9	0.02	5.6	0.74	47.5	0.00	8.5	0.73
Outside help seeking
Faith healers	11.7	0.00	0.0	0.12	18.1	0.00	2.3	0.25
Health facilities	100.0	1.00	95.5	4.87	100.0	1.00	80.2	4.41	***
Informal help from health worker/friend	38.5	0.00	4.5	0.52	73.4	0.00	15.8	1.21	***
Pharmacy/OTC	27.4	0.00	0.0	0.27	40.7	0.00	1.1	0.44	**
Traditional healers	3.9	0.00	0.0	0.04	9.6	0.06	0.6	0.12	*

^a Categories ordered alphabetically. Categories reported by less than 5% not listed; ^b Columns indicate percentage of reported categories, fraction of spontaneously mentioned categories and whether a category was identified as most helpful; ^cMean prominence based on values assigned to each reported category (0 = not reported, 1 = reported after probing, 2 = reported spontaneously, 3 = identified as most helpful).
Wilcoxon test used to compare mean prominence between both sites (* p ≤ 0.05, ** p ≤ 0.01, *** p ≤ 0.001).

ISSN: 1471-2334