scholarly journals Patients’ Perceptions of Hospital Care in a Covid-19 Pandemic Population

Author(s):  
Okechwukwu Felix Erondu ◽  
Michael Promise Ogolodom ◽  
Awajimijan Nathaniel Mbaba ◽  
Aniebo Nonyelum

Background: COVID-19 pandemic was associated with pandemonium and misinformation, affecting patients' health-seeking behavior. This study was designed to explore patients' perceptions of hospital care during this period and to provide evidence-based and appropriate public health planning strategies. Materials and Method: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 155 patients using 22 items structured and self-completion questionnaires to determine (A) Socio-demographic variables, (B) Knowledge and perception of the disease, and (C) The participants’ behaviors towards COVID-19. A Hardcopy version of the questionnaire was administered to the respondents by direct issuance. Results: 103(66.45%) of the respondents knew the cause of COVID-19, while 104 (67.09%) agreed that people can be infected with COVID-19 in the hospital.  84 (54.19%) were afraid of a hospital visit and 66 (42.58%) are unwilling to self-report if they have minor symptoms. A large number 43(27.74%) perceived a clean environment as the impetus to make them comfortable in the hospital. Conclusion: Our study illuminates gaps in the patients’ perceptions of hospital care during the COVID-19 pandemic, which impacted negatively on the patient population as they avoided hospitalization for fear of contracting COVID-19 in the hospital. Furthermore, appropriate public health strategies can improve patients’ perceptions and health-seeking behavior in a pandemic period.

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 1017-1021
Author(s):  
Benjamin Ojotu ◽  
◽  
Thomas Adubika ◽  

Nigeria is witnessing a disturbing rise of violence occasioned by religious, political, economic, cultural, and social motives. The incidence of violent crimes has created an unimaginable insecurity situation in the country, and the trend is increasing daily. Violent insecurity ranges from kidnapping, rape, armed robbery, terrorism, banditry, and assassinations. Meanwhile, the citizens, especially the younger ones, are caught in the center of these violent situations as they are either used to commit crimes or fall victims of violent crimes. Thus, the primary purpose of this study was to examine health-seeking behavior as a factor that could predict security consciousness among adolescents. The study adopted a cross-sectional survey design. Two hundred samples randomly pooled from public tertiary institutions in Kogi State, Nigeria, participated in the study. The participants completed self-report measures of security consciousness questionnaire and health-seeking behavior scale. A simple regression model established a statistically significant association between HSB and security consciousness among adolescents. The study concludes that health-seeking behavior is an essential determinant of security consciousness. The practical implication of the study is discussed.


Community level health seeking behavior needs investigation since community plays either protective or pathogenic role to health. This study, therefore, intended to examine the health seeking behavior of Afar using a community based cross-sectional survey design. The survey employed both quantitative and qualitative methods to collect relevant data. The findings revealed that a substantial number of participants have had misconceptions and/or erroneous knowledge about the causes and symptoms of illnesses. Besides, most of the participants preferred treatment service from modern health care institutions. Their choice is significantly associated with age and level of education. Moreover, various factors including cost, distance, attitude toward health, decision-making power on health, perceived satisfaction, social capital and socio-religious behaviour affect the utilization of available health care services. In general, the findings implied the presence of a positive health seeking behavior among Afar that can be further strengthened with interventions. The interventions should address the misconceptions about causes/symptoms of illnesses and promote appropriate hierarchy of resort to the utilization of available health care services.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howell T. Ho ◽  
Thaddeus M. Carvajal ◽  
John Robert Bautista ◽  
Jayson Dale R. Capistrano ◽  
Katherine M. Viacrusis ◽  
...  

Dengue is a major public health concern and an economic burden in the Philippines. Despite the country’s improved dengue surveillance, it still suffers from various setbacks and needs to be complemented with alternative approaches. Previous studies have demonstrated the potential of Internet-based surveillance such as Google Dengue Trends (GDT) in supplementing current epidemiological methods for predicting future dengue outbreaks and patterns. With this, our study has two objectives: (1) assess the temporal relationship of weekly GDT and dengue incidence in Metropolitan Manila from 2009–2014; and (2) examine the health-seeking behavior based on dengue-related search queries of the population. The study collated the population statistics and reported dengue cases in Metropolitan Manila from respective government agencies to calculate the dengue incidence (DI) on a weekly basis for the entire region and annually per city. Data processing of GDT and dengue incidence was performed by conducting an ‘adjustment’ and scaling procedures, respectively, and further analyzed for correlation and cross-correlation analyses using Pearson’s correlation. The relative search volume of the term ‘dengue’ and top dengue-related search queries in Metropolitan Manila were obtained and organized from the Google Trends platform. Afterwards, a thematic analysis was employed, and word clouds were generated to examine the health behavior of the population. Results showed that weekly temporal GDT pattern are closely similar to the weekly DI pattern in Metropolitan Manila. Further analysis showed that GDT has a moderate and positive association with DI when adjusted or scaled, respectively. Cross-correlation analysis revealed a delayed effect where GDT leads DI by 1–2 weeks. Thematic analysis of dengue-related search queries indicated 5 categories namely; (a) dengue, (b) sign and symptoms of dengue, (c) treatment and prevention, (d) mosquito, and (e) other diseases. The majority of the search queries were classified in ‘signs and symptoms’ which indicate the health-seeking behavior of the population towards the disease. Therefore, GDT can be utilized to complement traditional disease surveillance methods combined with other factors that could potentially identify dengue hotspots and help in public health decisions.


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


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document