Health Seeking Behavior among the Elderly People Attending Health Camp in Kirtipur Municipality.

Abstract

Introduction: Health seeking behavior (HSB) in geriatric age is considered as vulnerable. In
Nepal, most of the family members depend on each other for livelihood. In elderly, HSB may be
affected by the family support and the perceived need to seek health care by elderly people. This
study was done to assess the health seeking practices and challenges in utilizing health facilities
among geriatric age group.
Method: A cross sectional study was done in the month of March 2019 among geriatric age group
at Kritipur Municipality. A self-administered semi-structured questionnaire was used to obtain
information. The data was analyzed using SPSS 21.
Result: Almost 92% of participants were aged 70 years and 85.9% were illiterate. Main source
of income of the participants at present was old age allowance and children support (66.2%). All
the participants were aware about the available health facilities nearby in their locality. Among all
participants, two third reported they seek health consultation whenever they perceive its necessity
while one third of them does not visit health facility for early consultation. The main challenges to
visit health facility were reported as distance (15.5%), long waiting time (25.3%), lack of escort
(16.9%), lack of money (11.3 %) and consider disease as normal phenomenon of aging (22.5%).
Conclusion: In this study, the knowledge regarding health care facility and HSB was satisfactory.
This may be due to influence of new generation of family members as well as active health
promotive activities targeted towards elderly population.
Key words: Geriatric age, Health seeking behavior