title: Community Health Seeking Behavior for Suspected Human and Animal Rabies Cases, Gomma District, Southwest Ethiopia.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Timely presentation to appropriate health service provider of sick animals/humans from zoonotic diseases like rabies is important for early case/outbreak detection and management. However, data on community's health seeking practice for rabies in Ethiopia is limited. Therefore the objective of this study was to determine community's health seeking behavior on rabies, Southwest Ethiopia.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional survey was conducted from January 16-February 14, 2015 to collect data from 808 respondents where the respondents were selected using multistage sampling technique. Data were collected using interviewer administered structured questionnaire by trained epidemiology graduate level students. Data were entered to Epidata version 3.1 and analyzed using SPSS version 20 for windows.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Eight hundred three (99.4%) respondents participated in the study. Out of 28 respondents who reported their family members' exposure to rabies, 8 of them replied that the exposed family members sought treatment from traditional healers. More than nine in ten respondents perceived that humans and domestic animals with rabies exposure should seek help of which 85% of them suggested modern health care facilities as the preferred management option for the sick humans and domestic animals. However, among those who reported sick domestic animals, near to 72% of them had either slaughtered for human consumption, sold immediately, visited traditional healer, given home care or did nothing for the sick domestic animals.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Majority of the respondents had favorable perception of seeking treatment from modern health care facilities for rabies. However, significant number of them had managed inappropriately for the sick domestic animals from rabies. Hence, raising awareness of the community about management of sick domestic animals from rabies and the need for reporting to both human and animal health service providers is needed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, College of Public Health and Medical Science, Jimma University, Jimma, Ethiopia.
authors.forename: Tsegaye Tewelde
authors.initials: TT
authors.lastname: G/hiwot
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, College of Public Health and Medical Science, Jimma University, Jimma, Ethiopia.
authors.forename: Abiot Girma
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Sime
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterinary Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine and Agriculture, Jimma University, Jimma, Ethiopia.
authors.forename: Benti
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Deresa
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterinary Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine and Agriculture, Jimma University, Jimma, Ethiopia.
authors.forename: Wubit
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Tafese
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, College of Public Health and Medical Science, Jimma University, Jimma, Ethiopia.
authors.forename: Kifle Weldemichael
authors.initials: KW
authors.lastname: Hajito
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, College of Public Health and Medical Science, Jimma University, Jimma, Ethiopia.
authors.forename: Desta Hiko
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Gemeda
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D000829:Animals, Domestic; D003710:Demography; D005002:Ethiopia / Q000453:epidemiology; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D011818:Rabies / Q000191:economics / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012111:Residence Characteristics