Why do People Avoid Visiting Specialist Doctor? Answers from a Developing Country: Turkey Case

Abstract

Avoid seeking medical care deemed necessary has severe negative effects on health. Indeed, delayed presentation of patient puts significant burden on healthcare costs. There is limited literature examining the avoidance behavior of people. Our study explores the reasons of avoiding considering the Turkey case. TurkStat’s health research survey 2012 data is employed to examine why people avoid visiting the specialist doctor when needed to consult a specialist for healthcare service. Descriptive statistics analysis is conducted. It is seen that among 15+ aged nationally representative sample of 28,056 respondents 12.6% were avoider. Compared to non-avoiders, avoiders were more likely to be female, to live in rural area, to make out of pocket health payments, to be illiterate and to have lower income. Indeed, the avoiders were more likely to have worse perceived health, negative emotions, mental disorders, serious health problems and chronic diseases. It is found that for approximately one third of avoiders’ the main reason of avoiding was high costs and 22% of the avoiders reported that they do not have enough time. The other avoiding reasons were organizational factors, fear of medical treatment/surgery, distance/transportation, late appointment dates, having nobody to accompany and non-supportive family/relatives. Moreover, we observe that having nobody to accompany and distance to health institution are crucial problems mainly for female and fear of surgery threats male. In Turkey, interventions combating healthcare avoidance behaviors for the disadvantaged populations should be developed.