Health Seeking Behaviour of Rural People and Utilization of Health Care System: A Sociological Concern

Sociology of Health

Health is a prerequisite for human development and is essentially concerned with the well-being of the common man. Health is not only related to medical care but an integrated development of an entire human society. It is not only a stable state of physical and natural well-being but also in a true sense, it involved various other complex issues. As it is widely known, health is one of the imperative indicators shining the excellence of human life. A healthy community is very crucial because it can set the destiny of any society or country. To maintain a healthy lifestyle, health-seeking behaviour is a very important parameter. Health-seeking behaviour is considered the primary and most dynamic step toward the medication of any health-related complexity. It refers to a decision or action taken by an individual to maintain, attain, or regain good health and prevent illness. Healthcare-seeking behaviours and local practising knowledge require intervention to bring better health output in various contexts. By understanding the conceptualisation of people regarding their disease and the perception of any particular health-related problem helps to explore their health-seeking behaviour. In particular, in a rural Indian population, health-seeking behaviour is a difficult phenomenon. Indian population mainly lies in rural areas. Since the people of India are mainly rural and less educated, they have misconceptions about the available healthcare services and medicines. An awareness of health-seeking behaviour is paramount in the treatment of patients. Health-seeking behaviour in terms of illness behaviour refers to those activities undertaken by individuals in response to symptom experience. The perception of health-seeking behaviour among the rural people is interlinked with their traditional beliefs, practices, nature of interaction with the physical environment and changing social, cultural and economic domain. Very often, rural people fail to seek health care, believing that ailments are a part of life. Usually, they are unaware of the nature of problems and the various treatment modalities available. This leads to the worsening of the existing problems and the development of complications. The paper tries to find out the perception regarding health-seeking behaviour and understand the various factors affecting Health seeking behaviour.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.