Health care options and factors influencing health seeking behavior in a rural community in Nigeria: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Introduction: Health care resources are disproportionately distributed between urban and rural areas in many developing countries, including Nigeria. Barriers to health care like cultural beliefs, poor education, and financial constraints make many rural dwellers seek other options of health care available to them. This paper aimed to determine the sociodemographic factors that influence health-seeking practices in a rural community setting. Methods: A sample of 380 rural community dwellers in Southern Nigeria was recruited in a cross-sectional study. An interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to collect socio-demographic, healthcare access, and utilization data. Data were analyzed with SPSS version 25.0 software. A chi-square test was used to find the association between sociodemographic characteristics and their health-seeking practices. Results: Equal proportions (43.4%, 42.9%) of the respondents fell within the younger age categories of 10–29 and 30–49 years. Self-reported factors influencing the choice of health care were: promptness of care (41.8%), cost (22.4%), professionalism (16.8%), distance (15.8%), and cultural belief (3.2%). The patent medicine store was the most utilized source of health care (42.1%), and 36.8% of respondents sought health care in the hospital. The hospital was utilized by 41.8% of respondents with secondary education, 34.9% with tertiary education, 31.7% with primary education, and 26.1% with no formal education. Females tended to seek health care from hospitals (40.2%) and patent medicine store (43.7%) compared to males (33.3% and 41.0%, respectively). There was a statistically significant association between education and health care options utilized (P<0.05). Conclusion: This study draws attention to the suboptimal utilization of standard health care in a rural community setting mainly due to perceived influences of promptness of health care service (41.8%) and cost (22.4%). It revealed that rural dwellers mainly seek healthcare from patent medicine stores. The health authorities should, therefore, prioritize the eradication of delays at the point of care and expand financial access to health care. These would enable rural dwellers to optimize the minimum standard of health care available within their various communities.