Delivery complications and healthcare-seeking behaviour: the Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey, 1999-2000

Abstract

Maternal health services have a potentially critical role in the improvement of reproductive health. The use of health services is related to the availability, quality and cost of the services, as well as to social structure, health beliefs and the personal characteristics of the users. The present paper examined the factors that influence the use of maternal health services for some selected pregnancy-related complications (e.g. prolonged labour, excessive bleeding, high fever/discharge and convulsions) in Bangladesh by using data from the Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey, 1999-2000. It was found that younger mothers were significantly less likely to seek professional healthcare at the time of birth. The odds for rural women seeking healthcare services from a doctor, nurse and/or midwife were half those of urban women. The strong influence of the mothers' education and parity on the utilisation of healthcare services is consistent with findings from other studies. The possession of assets emerged as an important predictor of seeking care from health professionals at the time of birth. Another factor, i.e. a husband's concern about pregnancy complications, showed a significant and positive impact on the utilisation of healthcare services, which is very important for rural women when they are dependent on their spouses. It was observed that the respondents living in urban areas, who had higher levels of education and lower parity, and more assets (used as a proxy for income), visited trained healthcare providers more often and were more likely to use healthcare facilities provided by trained personnel at the time of delivery. This is a reflection of the fact that, irrespective of their needs, only people from higher economic or educational groups can afford to seek healthcare from trained personnel in Bangladesh. In other words, predisposing and enabling factors appear to have a strong association with women's healthcare utilisation during pregnancy.

Do socio-demographic factors still predict the choice of place of delivery: A cross-sectional study in rural North India

“…Almost equal proportions of home deliveries occurred in the 21-24 year old (38.1%) and [25][26][27][28][29] year old (38.7%) age groups. Participants belonging to the Muslim community (65.4%) preferred home as a place for delivery, which showed a statistical significant difference when compared with Hindus.…”

The health-seeking behaviours of first-time mothers with persistent pelvic girdle pain after childbirth in Ireland: A descriptive qualitative study

“…This is different from 'health behaviour', which is related to preventing health problem/disease (Kasl & Cobb 1966), and is sometimes referred to as 'health-promoting behaviour' (Lo et al 2014). It is also different from 'help seeking behaviour' which Cornally & McCarthy (2011b), in a concept analysis, defined as a problem-focused, planned behaviour, involving interpersonal interaction with a selected health-care professional; also often referred to as 'healthcare-seeking behaviour' (Chowdhury et al 2007). However, 'health-seeking behaviours', of interest in this study, may or may not involve a health-care professional, and can include other 'informal' actions aimed at improving or resolving the health problem they experience (El Kahi et al 2012).…”

Choice of place for childbirth: prevalence and correlates of utilization of health facilities in Chongwe district, Zambia

“…In spite of the closeness to a health facility, only 27.9% of live births were delivered at such health facilities 2 , suggesting that 22.1% of the expectant women did not deliver at a health facility despite being within reach of a health facility. There is overwhelming evidence that distance to a health facility is a strong determinant of the choice for maternal health services 3,4 , However, factors other than distance to health facility have been reported to be associated with health service utilization for childbirth such as education [5][6][7][8] , maternal age 3,6 , parity 6,8 , economic status 7 , cultural factors and beliefs, lack of skilled staff at primary health care level, and health worker negative attitudes towards expectant mothers 9 .…”