Care-seeking at patent and proprietary medicine vendors in Nigeria

Table 2 Care-seeking outcomes

Care-seeking behavior	N	%
Diagnosed by a formally trained person^a	185	0.078
Number of days sick before visiting a PPMV shop
0-1 days	811	0.344
2+ days	1548	0.656
Customer-PPMV interaction at the shop
Customer and PPMV discussed illness	972	0.412
Sick person was examined	172	0.073
Customer/family/friend recommended drug^b	1153	0.489
Drugs purchased
Mean (SD) cost (Naira)		85.90 (3.13)
Mean (SD) cost by symptom reported
Fever^c		203.71 (2.73)
Diarrhea^d		72.49 (3.04)
Headache^e		69.11 (3.09)
Cough/cold^f		111.37 (3.02)
Customer had problems paying^g	233	0.102
N		2359

SD = standard deviation
^aCustomer responded to the question, “Who figured out what illness this is?” Formally trained personnel include doctor/nurse, pharmacist, or community health extension worker (CHEW) and exclude myself/relative/friend, lab technician, chemist/PPMV, and traditional healers
^bCustomer responded to question, “Who mainly recommended the drugs that you purchased today?” Excludes doctor/nurse, pharmacist, chemist, CHEW, and traditional healer
^cN = 537
^dN = 199
^eN = 717
^fN = 423
^gN = 2284

ISSN: 1472-6963