Assessment of Patient Delay in Healthcare Seeking Behavior and Associated Factors among Women with Tuberculosis in Governmental Health in Stitution, Mekelle City, Tigray, Ethiopia, 2012
Objectives: was to assess patient delay in health care seeking behavior and associated factors among women with Tuberculosis in Mekelle City Governmental health facilities, Ethiopia 2012.Methods: The study design was Cross-sectional study and systematic random sampling technique was used to select participants from all governmental health facilities in Mekelle City. The study periods were from May 2012 to December, 2012.Data collection procedure was by using interviewer administered questionnaire. After completing data collection, data was coded and entered into SPSS version 20 software for analysis. univariate, Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression was computed and data was presented in texts, tables and figure. Result: A total of 257 participants were interviewed using standardized structured questionnaire and included in the analysis. Of those 15 respondents were excluded from the analysis for gross incompleteness and inconsistency of responses, made a response rate of 94.16 %. The mean age of respondents was30.59+12.61 years ranging from 16-75 years old. Being in age group >55 (AOR: 0.23, 95% CI 0.006, 0.03) was at risk for delay. Marital status 79(75.2%)was also found to be significantly associated with patient delay to seeking care and was found to be at great risk delay in seeking care (AOR: 0.002, 95% CI 0.001, 0.32) than that of other (divorce& widowed). Educational status was also found to be significantly associated with patient delay, illiterate 63(98.4%) by adjacently (AOR: 27, 95% CI 1.30, 60.45) was at risk for patient delay. Conclusion and Recommendation In conclusion the finding of this result showed that from the total respondents the reason of patient delay for seeking care for more than two third of the respondents were lack of money, illiteracy and being married was significantly associated with patient delay Therefore, Delay in care seeking behavior among women with TB more specific and effective education and income improvement needs work on self-esteem development on care seeking behavior among women’s with TB.