Thesis (M.S.) - Cyprus International University. Institute for Graduate Studies and Research Healthcare Organization Management

Health care seeking behavior (HSB) is a "sequence of remedial actions that individuals undertake to rectify perceived ill-health." to be precise, health-seeking behavior is explained with data collected from information to be the time difference between the start of an illness and getting in contact with a healthcare professional, the kind of provider of healthcare the patient seek help from, how seriously the patient comply with the recommended treat, reasons why she/he choose that healthcare and reasons for not seeking help from healthcare professionals. People seek help on health issues for so many different reasons and the factors that determine the kind of treatment sources when symptoms occur include socio-cultural factors, social networks, gender and economic status. Access to healthcare facilities in terms of cost of treatment and healthcare provider attitude are also determinants of health seeking behavior. It is a cross-sectional quantitative questionnaire research that randomly sample a cluster of African students across three cities in the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus on their perception and health care seeking behavior towards health care services in TRNC. The collected data was analyzed using SPSS software. The findings of this study show that the students' choices of treat sources vary based on perceived severity of their illness. Self-medication was report as the primary action taken by the students. When it comes to frequently used services by the individual students, the findings show the students frequently made used of pharmacy's shops within their communities. The findings on barriers or factors that affect their used of biomedical care were attributed primarily to language and cost of care. Students seek different channels of care and their HSB towards biomedical services is poor, even though they have a positive perception of the health services at the various service delivery points but, a general poor perception of the system of health care rendered in TRNC

1 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

2 RESEARCH PROBLEM

3 OBJECTIVE OF THE RESEARCH

3 RESEARCH QUESTION

3 SIGNIFICANT OF RESEARCH

5 CHAPTER TWO:REVIEW OF LITERATURE

5 A REVIEW OF HEALTH SYSTEM IN NORTH CYPRUS

8 UNDERSTANDING THE HEALTHCARE SEEKING BEHAVIOR (HSB)

8 MODEL USED TO DETERMINE HEALTH CARE SEEKING

8 THE PATHWAY MODEL

9 THE DETERMINANT OF THE MODEL

12 FACTORS THAT AFFECT HEALTH SEEKING BEHAVIOR

12 ILLNESS TYPE, SEVERITY

12 ACCESSIBILITY AND AVAILABILITY OF HEALTHCARE FACILITIES

12 SOCIAL DETERMINANTS AND HEALTH SEEKING BEHAVIOR

12 SOCIO- ECONOMICS FACTOR

14 CULTURE AS AN HSB FACTOR

14 LANGUAGE AS A CULTURAL HEALTHCARE BARRIER

14 STIGMA AS AN HSB FACTOR

15 HEALTH SEEKING BEHAVIOR: THE PROCESS OF ILLNESS RESPONSE

16 A REVIEW OF SOME PUBLISH WORK ON HSB IN AFRICAN

18 CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHOD

18 AREA OF STUDY

18 TARGET POPULATION AND SAMPLE SIZE

19 FRAMEWORK CONCEPT

20 THE RESEARCH DESIGN AND INSTRUMENT

20 DATA COLLECTION AND SAMPLING TECHNIQUES

21 DATA ANALYSIS

22 ISSUES OF ETHICS

23 CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS

23 SECTION A: DEMOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS

25 RELIABILITY TEST

26 SECTION B: RESULT ANALYSIS OF RESPONDENT PERSONAL AILMENTS, KNOWLEDGE OF AILMENT AND ACTIONS TAKEN

29 SECTION C: RESULTS ANALYSIS ON HEALTH SEEKING BEHAVIOR (HSB)

31 SECTION D: RESULTS ON RESPONDENTS PERCEPTION OF HEALTH SERVICE IN TRNC

36 SECTION E: RESULTS ANALYSIS FOR REGRESSION

40 CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

40 DISCUSSIONS

42 CONCLUSION

42 RECOMMENDATIONS

42 LIMITATIONS

44 REFERENCES

49 APPENDIX 1

49 PERMISSION TO USE RESEARCH INSTRUMENT

49 APPENDIX 2