A Household Study of Illness Prevalence and Health Care Preferences in a Rural District of Cameroon

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Abstract
This report gives the results of a health interview survey using a recall interval of one month, in Rural Cameroon carried out between 5 November 1973 and 7 March 1974 on a random selection of 1888 families with 9362 individuals. The disease prevalence in the study area (a positive illness rate of 27·8 per cent for a four-week recall period) is analysed by age, sex and treatment preference. People, under the age of 15 years suffered predomin andy from respiratory (20 per cent), digestive (29 per cent) and parasitic (12 per cent) diseases for which Western treatment was preferred (average of 65 per cent). In adults musculoskeletal, digestive diseases and generalized body pains were responsible for 63 per cent of diseases in the age-group 46 and over. The treatment choice was partly Western (50 per cent) and partly traditIonal (20 per cent). Traditional treatment was generally preferred for seizures (65 per cent) and mental illnesses (87 per cent) except for children under four years who received 50·6 per cent treatment for seizures from traditional sources and 49·4 per cent from Western sources.

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