Morbidity Pattern, Utilization of healthcare services and Health Seeking Behavior of men from tribal community

Background: Tribal people suffer from diseases due to ignorance and lack of knowledge. Malayali, is one of the primitive tribes in India living in Jawadhi Hills which is spread over Vellore and Thiruvannamalai districts of Tamilnadu. Objectives: This study was aimed to assess the morbidity pattern, utilization of healthcare services, and health seeking behavior of men from tribal community. Methodology: A Cross-Sectional, Quantitative study design was used. The study was carried out in the villages Jawadhi Hills. The population and sample were men from the tribal communities. A multistage cluster sampling was used to sample 200 participants. Interview technique using a questionnaire was utilized for data collection. Physical assessments and blood investigations were done on all the participants. Results: Findings showed that majority of them 91(45.5%) had acute illnesses and 30(15%) had chronic illness and utilization of health services was better in them. Acute illnesses were Upper Respiratory Tract Infection (URI) fever and headache. Chronic Illnesses were Hypertension, Myalgia, Gastritis, CVA, Heart Diseases, Bronchial Asthma and Tuberculosis. Nearly half of them, 53% took treatment from PHC, 21.2% from private health facility, 12.1% took native treatment 7.5% from higher Government health facility and only 1.5% took Over the Counter (OTC) medications. Health care services were fully utilized by 65(32.6%) men, 123(61.8%) partially utilized and 11(5.5%) never utilized. Significant association was found between education and duration of chronic illness. Significant association was found between selected socio demographic variables, morbidity pattern and utilization of health care services. Conclusion: Most of them had some form of illness for which health care was not sought appropriately. They were ignorant about the health services available in the public and private facilities. Health care was inaccessible to most of them due to difficult geographic terrain.