Healthcare-seeking behaviors for acute respiratory illness in two communities of Java, Indonesia: a cross-sectional survey

Abstract

Understanding healthcare-seeking patterns for respiratory illness can help improve estimations of disease burden and inform public health interventions to control acute respiratory disease in Indonesia. The objectives of this study were to describe healthcare-seeking behaviors for respiratory illnesses in one rural and one urban community in Western Java, and to explore the factors that affect care seeking. From February 8, 2012 to March 1, 2012, a survey was conducted in 2520 households in the East Jakarta and Bogor districts to identify reported recent respiratory illnesses, as well as all hospitalizations from the previous 12-month period. We found that 4% (10% of those less than 5 years) of people had respiratory disease resulting in a visit to a healthcare provider in the past 2 weeks; these episodes were most commonly treated at government (33%) or private (44%) clinics. Forty-five people (0.4% of those surveyed) had respiratory hospitalizations in the past year, and just over half of these (24/45, 53%) occurred at a public hospital. Public health programs targeting respiratory disease in this region should account for care at private hospitals and clinics, as well as illnesses that are treated at home, in order to capture the true burden of illness in these communities.

Health-Seeking Behavior of People in Indonesia: A Narrative Review

“…However, recruiting participants with a specific condition from the community means a large number of people need to be screened to find respondents. Some researchers, however, have conducted household surveys to study health-seeking behavior related to acute respiratory illness, tuberculosis, and malaria [21,22,33,62]. Some studies used secondary data from national surveys, revealing patterns of health-care utilization, and sociodemographic determinants [29,52,65,84,89,94,96].…”

“…Many people were reluctant to go to public health facilities as they experienced complex administrative procedures, one-sided communication style of health professionals, and long waiting times [28,29,35,40,41,67]. Thus, many people choose to go to private health providers [22,33,36,51,59,65,67]. Further reasons driving the choice of private providers include perceived quality of provider, availability of brand name medicines, and short waiting times [36,59,66,67].…”

The epidemiology and population-based incidence of influenza in two communities, Bandung District, West Java, Indonesia, 2008-2011

“…It is possible that the small number of infections we detected in older adults was because elderly persons may not always seek medical care or may not manifest fever with influenza when presenting for primary care and would have been missed by our ILI case definition, so we would have underestimated influenza disease burden in the elderly population. To perform sensitivity analysis, we also calculated the annual incidence among elderly by using a lower CHCU percentage among elderly (21.7%) as reported from another Indonesian study, 24 but the incidence of influenza among elderly was still the lowest among all age groups (Supplementary Table 1).…”

The Intersection of Care Seeking and Clinical Capacity for Patients With Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A (H5N1) Virus in Indonesia: Knowledge and Treatment Practices of the Public and Physicians

“…As reported in a previous study, health care facilities were not heavily used for nonspecific symptoms, and slightly less than two-thirds (61%) of households with sick individuals chose to treat themselves at home or visit a pharmacy for over-the-counter remedies. 12 Preference for traditional healers (dukun) had a very low prevalence in this population; less than 6% expressed a preference for this source in general and even fewer cited traditional treatment from dukun as appropriate for treating fever/cough (3.4%) or fever/cough/difficulty breathing (<1.0%) in family members.…”

“…Additionally, households that experienced severe respiratory illness were evenly divided between those opting for self-care and those seeking treatment at a health care facility (47% for each), and hospitalizations for these symptoms were rare. 12 It is unclear how perceptions of health care services and HPAI H5N1 risk informed decisions to self-treat or seek care and to what extent these perceptions are accurate.…”