HEALTH CARE SEEKING PRACTICES FOR NON- COMMUNICABLE DISEASES AMONG ADULTS IN KATHMANDU VALLEY, NEPAL

Abstract

Nepal being a developing nation faces multiple challenges in fulfilling the health care requirements. When people fall sick, they have many choices like where to seek help, how to seek help, and when seek help. All these choices are influenced by different factors that enable people to seek health care from the place of their choice; others may act as barriers. Factors like time, insecurity, income, culture, status and other socioeconomic factors may influence health care seeking behavior and how quickly people seek health care. This, community based, exploratory cross-sectional study surveyed about 221 participants from Kathmandu valley with approximately 50-50% male to female ratio using a semi-structured questionnaire. This study aimed to understand determinants of health care seeking behaviors for NCDs and to explore beliefs and practices that influence people’s decision regarding care seeking. The prevalence of self reported Non-Communicable Diseases from the sample was found to be 42.9%. The most common NCD in woman was Thyroid disease and in men, Hypertension and Diabetes. Affordability of quality health care was identified as a major barrier in seeking health care along with lack of client satisfaction in terms of behaviors of service providers. Lack of formal awareness regarding NCDs and care seeking in large percent was found to be some key problems that need to be addressed quickly to improve health care seeking practices of people.