assessment of health care seeking behavior among household heads in dale woreda, sidama zone; southern Ethiopia.

Abstract

Back ground. Health seeking behavior refers to those activities undertaken by individuals in response to symptom experience. Timing and the types of treatment for sick women, children, adolescents, and the old household members are usually determined by household heads. There is limited information on level of health care seeking behavior and associated factors among house hold heads. Therefore, assessing factors associated with health care seeking behavior among house hold heads have important role to filling the information gap to control inappropriate health care seeking practice and its outcomes. Objective- To assess health care seeking behavior & its associated factor among house hold heads in Dale woreda from February to March 2017.Methods - A community based cross- sectional study was conducted in Dale woreda by using quantitative data collection methods. Stratified random sampling technique was employed to select household heads from rural and urban areas. A structured and pre-tested questionnaire was used. Data was entered into a computer using Epi data 4.13, and analyzed using SPSS for windows version 16.Result - A total of 804 household heads (625 rural and 179 urban) giving a response rate of 95.3 % were interviewed. Among the study participants male comprises 693(86.2%) and female comprises 111(13.8%).Majority of the sick individual lies at age group of 18-30 years which accounts for 372( 46.3%). The overall appropriate health care seeking behavior of household heads was 585(72.8%) at the study area. Urban residence [AOR=3.32, 95% CI: 1.94, 5.68], high school and above educational level [AOR=4.26, 95%CI: 2.16, 8.43], Monthly income >=1170ETB [AOR=2.98, 95%CI: 1.37, 5.68] and Family size <5 [AOR=2.29, 95%CI: 1.64, 3.19] were independent predictor of health care seeking behavior. Conclusion -Urban residence, high school and above educational level, monthly income >=1170ETB and family size <5 were independent predictors of health care seeking behaviors. Recommendation. Different stake holders are recommended on, scaling up CBHI, implementation on fee waivers, awareness creation on modern health facility and further research based on residence. Key words- Appropriate health seeking behavior, inappropriate health seeking behavior, Keble, Urban, Rural