scholarly journals HEALTH SEEKING BEHAVIOR OF THE PEOPLE

2011 ◽  
Vol 18 (04) ◽  
pp. 626-631
Author(s):  
M. SAEED SIDDIQUI ◽  
M. KHALID SIDDIQUI ◽  
AIJAZ AHMAD SOHAG

Objectives: The aims and objectives were, to know about the approach of people towards seeking medical advice with different options of healers, to observe thinking, feeling and various actions of people including level of self medication, and to know perception of people regarding various practices done by the healers. Data Source: People living in urban slum areas of Karachi. Design of Study: Cross sectional Study. Setting: Karachi. Period: July to October 2008. Subjects and Methods: It was Knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) study carried out on a sample of 300 permanent household members aged ≥ 16 years of middle and poor class living in urban slum areas of Karachi. Results: The mean age of the study participants was 38.27 with standard deviation of 17.57. 182 (61 %) were male while 118(39 %) were female. Out of 300 study participants (n=300) 260 (86.6 %) consult allopathic healers including 169 (56.33 %) MBBS general practitioners and 91 (30.3 % ) non qualified or quacks,25 (8.3 %) consult homeopaths, 11 ( 3.6 % ) Hakims, and only 4 (1.33 % )consult faith healers (P < 0.05).148 (49.33 %), participants belong to middle class group, while 152 (50.66 % ) were from poor class. 50 % study participants do self medication at home prior to consultation for heath. Conclusions: Health seeking behavior is a complex phenomenon in developing countries like Pakistan where poverty overrides all other factors in decision of selecting a healer. It is recommended that people should be educated in choosing a healer which should be a qualified one.

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-128
Author(s):  
Luna Amalia

Abstract Street children have a high risk of health problems. This study aims to determine the enabling factors (shelter membership, availability of health insurance, accessibility of health care and social support) associated with the health seeking behavior of street children in Bekasi City. The study design was crosssectional with the sample size of 130 respondents. Analysis results showed that the most of the respondents (82,7%) had poor health seeking behavior. The results of bivariate analyzed showed that the availability of health insurance was significantly associated with health seeking behavior of the street children (p value = 0,054). Street children who had health insurance had an opportunity for good health seeking behavior 2,7 times higher than those who did not have health insurance. It was suggested that data collection of health seeking behavior and the safety of self medication was important as to determine the health needs of street children. Keywords : health seeking behavior, street children Abstrak Anak jalanan memiliki risiko tinggi gangguan kesehatan. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui hubungan faktor pemungkin (kepesertaan rumah singgah, ketersediaan jaminan kesehatan, aksesibilitas pelayanan kesehatan dan dukungan sosial) dengan perilaku pencarian pengobatan anak jalanan di Kota Bekasi. Desain penelitian menggunakan cross sectional dengan jumlah sampel 130 responden. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa sebagian besar responden (82,7%) melakukan perilaku pencarian pengobatan yang kurang baik. Hasil analisis bivariat menunjukkan bahwa ketersediaan jaminan kesehatan berhubungan signifikan dengan perilaku pencarian pengobatan anak jalanan (p value = 0,054). Anak jalanan yang memiliki jaminan kesehatan, memiliki peluang untuk pencarian pengobatan yang baik sebesar 2,7 kali lebih tinggi dibandingkan anak jalanan yang tidak memiliki jaminan kesehatan. Disarankan pentingnya pendataan anak jalanan dan swamedikasi yang tepat dan aman bagi anak jalanan. Kata kunci : Perilaku, pencarian pengobatan, anak jalanan


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. e14
Author(s):  
Abdul Rehman Arshad ◽  
◽  
Imtiaz Bashir ◽  
Ahmad Tariq ◽  
Farhat Ijaz ◽  
...  

Amidst a time when there is the global pandemic of COVID-19 and high levels of stress and anxiety among people, it was pertinent to study if people have modified their health-seeking behavior. A questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was performed in Lahore to assess the change in behaviors of people before and during the pandemic. The results show that the health seeking behavior of the people has changed during the pandemic, resulting in an increased trend of self-medication and a decreased number of people visiting the hospital for their ailments. People preferred private health providers over the government facilities. This might be due to the misinformation, panic, and uncertainties spread by the social media. Governmental health care providers should consider these aspects while addressing the polices related to the pandemic.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Likawunt Samuel Asfaw ◽  
Samuel Yohannes Ayanto ◽  
Yitagessu Habtu Aweke

AbstractBackgroundHealth-seeking behavior is a sequence of actions taken to promote health and prevent disease. Governments’ expenditure to health is being improved in Ethiopia. In contrast, high disease burden and low health service utilization is observed. The low health service utilization could be due to low health-seeking behavior of the community. Thus, this studywas aimed to determine the level of health-seeking behavior and associated factors in Hosanna town, Southern Ethiopia.MethodsWe used communitybased cross-sectional study design among community (n= 443) in Hosanna town. The overall health-seeking behavior of study participants was assessed using the mean score of each of the dimensions (health promotion and disease prevention activities) as a cut-off value. Having a score above the mean on each of the target dimensions was equated with having a high level of health seeking behaviour. STATA 12 soft-ware package (Stata Corporation, College Station, Texas, 77845, USA)was used for descriptive and logistic regression analysis.ResultsAbout eighty five percent of (85.4%) participants had low level of health-seeking behavior. Males were about two folds more likely to have low level of health-seeking behavior than females (AOR: 1.8; CI 1.03–3.42). Widowed participants were about five times more likely to have low health-seeking behavior (AOR: 4.8; CI 2.1–17.1) when compared to married participants. Those participants who are illiterate were about five times more likely to have low health-seeking behavior than who completed higher education (AOR: 4.5; CI 1.16–17.8).ConclusionThe study revealed low health-seeking behavior among the study participants in the study area. This finding suggested the need forurgent interventions to the health literacy packages of Ethiopia to enhance the health seeking behavior of the country.


Author(s):  
Sanghamitra Ray ◽  
Rajesh Kumar Meena ◽  
Hariom Kumar Solanki ◽  
Prakash Chand Jain

Background: India has a high burden of under five mortality. Faulty feeding practices and mortality due to vaccine preventable diseases is a major hurdle. Objective was to assess breast feeding practices and vaccination status of children of less than 5 years by age and its correlation with socio-demographic profile.Methods: This was a cross- sectional descriptive study involving children of nine months to five years.Results: Health seeking behavior in terms of adequate antenatal checkup and institutional deliveries was quite high; but only one third of children had early initiation of breast feeding and the main reason was delay in rooming-in. Early breast feeding had significant correlation with the greater duration of breast feeding and the duration of exclusive breast feeding was significantly associated with the literacy status of mother. Only 34% of children were vaccinated on time and frequent migration was the cause of delay in 25%. Ground level workers were the main source of information regarding vaccination in this study population.Conclusions: Feeding practices were not satisfactory. Institutional fallacies also came into focus such as delayed rooming-in. Awareness regarding vaccination was inadequate and was incomplete in majority of children. General awareness and health seeking behavior of our community still need enhancement to a great extent.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. e0008334
Author(s):  
Gabriel Alcoba ◽  
Manon Chabloz ◽  
Justin Eyong ◽  
Franck Wanda ◽  
Carlos Ochoa ◽  
...  

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dewa Adhikari ◽  
Dagendra Rijal

Objectives To determine the health status and the factors affecting health seeking behavior of the senior citizens aged 60years and above.Materials and methods A descriptive cross-sectional study based on household survey was adapted. The sample consisted of 400 senior citizens resident of Dharan. Simple random sampling technique was employed to select the study subject. Individuals were interviewed through self- developed semi-structured pre-tested questionnaires. Descriptive and inferential statistics (chi-squire test) were used.Results Among 400 respondents, the most frequently reported illness were hypertension(29.3%), diabetes mellitus (8.3%), arthritis/joint pain (24.8%), eye problems (19.0%), hearing problems (3.3%), oral health problems (17.5%), digestive system problems (17.8%), respiratory problems (11.0%), heart disease (3.8%), renal problem (5.3%), skin diseases (7.5%), tuberculosis (3.0%), liver disease (3.0%), mental illness (5.75%),fracture (1.0%), Gynecological problems (7.3%) and male genital (6.3%) problems were also noted. Faith healers were the first treatment choice (97.2%) irrespective of age, gender or ethnicity. After that they visited BPKIHS (36.3%), private practitioner (26.3%), self treatment (11.3%) and self drug-use (6.8%). Half of the respondents utilized formal health institutions only in major chronic conditions. Poverty emerged as a major determinant of health seeking behavior and treatment was considered waste of money (indirect effect 64%) and lack of money (35 .5%) followed by poor attitude of health worker (41%).Conclusion The use of faith healer as first treatment provider, self-treatment, drug over counter shop were indicative factors of the inefficient utilization of health facilities in meeting the health needs of the senior citizens, were ranked the major determinants of factors affecting health seeking behavior of the senior citizens. Journal of Nobel College of Medicine Vol.4(1) 2015: 57-63


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