Acute Morbidity Patterns and Health Care Seeking Behavior- a Community Based Study, Mahsama Village, Ismailia Governorate, Egypt

Abstract

Background: Information on the existing morbidity patterns and health care seeking behavior (HCSB) is essential for the analysis of most health related policy issues and enable governments to provide a need-based health care especially to rural communities. Methods: A community based cross sectional study was conducted from September 1st, 2015 to December1st, 2015 in Mahsama village, Ismailia Governorate, Egypt to determine acute morbidity patterns and HCSB of 839 households. Data were acquired on predesigned and pretested questionnaire. The household heads were considered as the respondents. The questionnaire included information on household incidence of acute illnesses during the preceding 4 weeks and related HCSB. Results: 839 home interviews were conducted with household heads to assess their HCSB and morbidity profile of their family members within the preceding 4 weeks of the study. 442 of respondents (52.7%) reported 984 recent acute illnesses in their families. Upper Respiratory Tract Infection (URTI) presented the most common disease (71.64%). Most patients (53.55%) consulted nonqualified providers. While 46.45% of patients preferred to consult qualified practitioners. The low cost (26.37%) and effectiveness of care (21.82%) were the main reasons behind the selection of the non-qualified providers. Respondents' education level, family income and perception of disease severity were also found to be the main determinants of this pattern of HCSB.Conclusion: it is important to develop a need based health care delivery system and actions focusing on the morbidity patterns and beliefs of local community to direct their HCSB to qualified providers. Key words: Acute morbidity incidence, rural health, health care seeking behavior. Introduction:In rural Egypt, a large number of deaths occurs mostly from preventable and treatable infectious diseases, such as Respiratory Tract Infection (RTI), diarrhea, and malaria. Obtaining reliable estimates of morbidity patterns and HCSB is challenging in resource limited countries like Egypt, where poor people tend to access non-qualified health care providers. Information on the existing morbidity pattern and HCSB is also essential for the analysis of most health related policy issues and enable governments to provide a need-based health care to their communities. (1) Egypt initiated its long-term Health Sector Reform Project in 1997. At the core of the reform was the primary health care (PHC) system. The Egyptian government substantially aiming to shift the focus of healthcare from reliance on specialist care to a less costly and more widely accessible primary care based model. Today around 5000 public primary care practices run by

Developing a mortality risk prediction model using data of 3663 hospitalized COVID-19 patients: a retrospective cohort study in an Egyptian University Hospital

“…Many factors might have contributed to the relatively high ICU mortality. First, because early seeking for medical care is not a norm in our society and hospital isolation is not a preferred choice [ 23 ], and patients usually presented late after trying some of the over-the-counter treatments. Second, due to stretching and exhaustion of the healthcare capacity in the epidemic, a considerable proportion of our patients were admitted as a referral from other healthcare facilities; a condition that probably added more delay to their presentation.…”