Pattern of health care utilization and traditional and complementary medicine use among Ebola survivors in Sierra Leone

© 2019 James et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Background It is well established that Ebola Survivors experience a myriad of physical and psychological sequelae. However, little is known about how they seek care to address their health needs. Our study determines the current healthcare seeking behaviour among Ebola survivors and determines the prevalence, pattern of use and correlates of traditional and complementary medicine (T&;CM) use among Ebola survivors in Sierra Leone. Methods We conducted a nationwide questionnaire survey among a cross-sectional sample of Ebola Survivors in Sierra Leone between January and August 2018. We employed descriptive statistics, chi-square test, Fisher exact two-tailed test and backward stepwise binary regression analysis for data analysis. A p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results Ebola Survivors who participated in our study (n = 358), visited a healthcare provider (n = 308, 86.0%), self-medicated with conventional medicines (n = 255, 71.2%) and visited a private pharmacy outlet (n = 141, 39.4%). Survivors also self-medicated with T&;CM products (n = 107, 29.9%), concurrently self-medicated with conventional and T&;CM products (n = 62, 17.3%), and visited a T&;CM practitioner (n = 41, 11.5%). Almost half of (n = 163, 45.5%) Ebola survivors reported using T&;CM treatments for post ebola related symptoms and non-Ebola related symptoms since their discharge from an Ebola treatment centre. Ebola survivors who considered their health to be fair or poor (AOR = 4.08; 95%CI: 2.22–7.50; p<0.01), presented with arthralgia (AOR = 2.52; 95%CI: 1.11–5.69, p = 0.026) and were discharged three years or less (AOR = 3.14; 95%CI: 1.13–8.73, p = 0.028) were more likely to use T&;CM. Family (n = 101,62.0%) and fr