Health-seeking behaviour during times of illness: a study among adults in a resource poor setting in Ghana

Kuuire, Vincent Z.; Bisung, Elijah; Rishworth, Andrea; Dixon, Jenna; Luginaah, Isaac

doi:10.1093/pubmed/fdv176

Cited by 44 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…The results of this study revealed that in case of simple illnesses, the factors such as age, educational level, place of residence, household income, having health insurance, type of health insurance and mandatory or optional referral system influenced the use of services, but the factors such as gender, marital status, and health status did not play any roles in the use of services. The study by Kuuire et al on health-seeking behaviors during illnesses showed that age, health status and educational were effective on individuals' behaviors (27). The results of their study were not consistent with those of our study in terms of the impact of health status.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Utilization of Primary Health Care Services in Rural and Urban Areas in Shiraz

2018

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Background: Different factors affect individuals' behaviors when they encounter a health problem or a disease. This cross-sectional study was conducted to analyze health-seeking behaviors and utilization pattern of primary health care services among the households living in Shiraz, Iran. Methods: This household survey was conducted among 500 households living in urban and rural areas, selected through threestage sampling during 2016 -2017. The data were collected via a questionnaire designed by the researcher (Cronbach's alpha coefficient: 0.747), and the questions were answered by the most informed family members. The data were then analyzed using Chisquare, independent samples t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Pearson correlation coefficient. Results: We found that 52.4% of the subjects were female, 65.6% were married and 34.4% had academic education. Furthermore, 95% were under the coverage of a health insurance, of which 64.4% had social security insurance. The mean age of the participants was 39.08 years. In terms of socio-economic characteristics of the households, 52.4% had a personal house and 56.6% were in the income group of 10 -20 million Rials. The average household size was 3.86. Further, 41.8% of the households had elderly member(s), 49.6% had hypertensive patient(s) and 32.8% of the households had diabetic member(s). Only 31.2% of the participants said they needed consultation on high-risk behaviors. According to our findings, the subjects had inappropriate health-seeking behaviors (direct referral to a specialist physician and disregarding the problem) when facing four out of the seven services surveyed (about 60%). The most important reason for disregarding the problem was that it did not seem serious to the individuals. Our results showed when facing simple illnesses, education level (P = 0.003), age (P = 0.001), insurance (P = 0.000), type of insurance (P = 0.000), income level (P = 0.001), residence (P = 0.001) and type of referral system (P = 0.004) had a statistically significant relationship with the possibility seeking service and the level of services utilized. The factors affecting the utilization of primary health care services when requiring nutritional counseling, psychological services, counseling for high-risk behaviors, elderly care, as well as hypertension and diabetic care were different. Conclusions: In half of the studied first-level health services, referral to specialist physicians was more common; this behavior would increase the health costs of the country. Therefore, it seems necessary to improve the quality of primary health care services, promote culture and adopt policies to encourage the referral system usage and carry out patient screening.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Utilization of Primary Health Care Services in Rural and Urban Areas in Shiraz

2018

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“…It is possible that poor women are less educated and may not easily access information and even when they do, they may not easily appreciate it [49]. Poverty has also been found to be associated with poor health-seeking behaviours [50].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Correlates of uptake of optimal doses of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine for prevention of malaria during pregnancy in East-Central Uganda

Mbonye

Kirwana

Ndugga

et al. 2020

Malar J

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Background: In 2012, the World Health Organization recommended that pregnant women in malaria-endemic countries complete at least three (optimal) doses of intermittent preventive treatment (IPTp) using sulfadoxinepyrimethamine (SP) to prevent malaria and related adverse events during pregnancy. Uganda adopted this recommendation, but uptake remains low in East-Central and information to explain this low uptake remains scanty. This analysis determined correlates of uptake of optimal doses of IPTp-SP in East-Central Uganda. Methods:This was a secondary analysis of the 2016 Uganda Demographic Health Survey data on 579 women (15-49 years) who attended at least one antenatal care (ANC) visit and had a live birth within 2 years preceding the survey. Uptake of IPTp-SP was defined as optimal if a woman received at least three doses; partial if they received 1-2 doses or none if they received no dose. Multivariate analysis using multinomial logistic regression was used to determine correlates of IPTp-SP uptake. Results:Overall, 22.3% of women received optimal doses of IPTp-SP, 48.2% partial and 29.5% none. Attending ANC at a lower-level health centre relative to a hospital was associated with reduced likelihood of receiving optimal doses of IPTp-SP. Belonging to other religious faiths relative to Catholic, belonging to a household in the middle relative to poorest wealth index, and age 30 and above years relative to 25-29 years were associated with higher likelihood of receiving optimal doses of IPTp-SP. Conclusions:In East-Central Uganda, uptake of optimal doses of IPTp-SP is very low. Improving institutional delivery and household wealth, involving religious leaders in programmes to improve uptake of IPTp-SP, and strengthening IPTp-SP activities at lower level health centers may improve uptake of IPTp-SP in the East-Central Uganda.

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“…A minimum sample size of 383 was calculated using the formula (n = z 2 pq/d 2 ) by taking the prevalence (p) of attending healthcare facilities while having illness at 48% with 0.5% precision at 95% confidence level. 20 A sample size of 421 was used after adding a non-response rate of 10%. To obtain more precise estimation, we recruited more participants (n = 507) for this study.…”

Section: Sample Size Estimation and Samplingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health-Seeking Behaviors and its Determinants: A Facility-Based Cross-Sectional Study in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

Abuduxike¹,

Aşut²,

Vaizoğlu³

et al. 2019

Int J Health Policy Manag

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Background: Understanding health-seeking behaviors and determining factors help governments to adequately allocate and manage existing health resources. The aim of the study was to examine the health-seeking behaviors of people in using public and private health facilities and to assess the factors that influence healthcare utilization in Northern Cyprus. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2 polyclinics among 507 people using a structured intervieweradministered questionnaire. Health-seeking behaviors were measured using four indicators including routine medical check-ups, preferences of healthcare facilities, admission while having health problems, and refusal of health services while ill. Descriptive statistics and multivariable logistic regression analyses were done to explore factors influencing the use of health services. Results: About 77.3% of the participants reported to have visited health centers while they had any health problems. More than half (51.7%) of them had a routine medical check-up during the previous year, while 12.2% of them had refused to seek healthcare when they felt ill during the last five years. Of all, 39.1% of them reported preferring private health services. Current smokers (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]=1.92, 95% CI: 1.17-3.14), having chronic diseases (AOR=2.05, 95% CI: 1.95-2.16), having poor perceptions on health (AOR=2.33; 95% CI: 1.563.48), and spending less on health during the last three months (AOR=2.08, 95% CI: 1.43- 3.01) had about twice the odds of having routine checkups. Higher education (AOR=1.87, 95% CI: 1.38-2.55) was shown to be a positive predictor for the health-seeking behaviors, whereas having self-care problems (AOR=0.18, 95% CI: 0.08-0.40) and having a moderate-income (AOR=0.68, 95% CI: 0.57-0.81) were inversely associated with seeking healthcare. Conclusion: The utilization of public and private health sectors revealed evident disparities in the socio-economic characteristics of participants. The health-seeking behaviors were determined by need factors including chronic disease status and having poor health perception and also by enabling factors such as education, income, insurance status and ability to pay by oneself. These findings highlight the need for further nationwide studies and provide evidence for specific strategies to reduce the socioeconomic inequalities in the use of healthcare services.

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Health-seeking behaviour during times of illness: a study among adults in a resource poor setting in Ghana

Cited by 44 publications

References 30 publications

Utilization of Primary Health Care Services in Rural and Urban Areas in Shiraz

Utilization of Primary Health Care Services in Rural and Urban Areas in Shiraz

Correlates of uptake of optimal doses of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine for prevention of malaria during pregnancy in East-Central Uganda

Health-Seeking Behaviors and its Determinants: A Facility-Based Cross-Sectional Study in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

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