A Study On The Health Seeking Behavior Among Caregivers Of Under-Five Children In A Rural Area Of West Bengal

Background- Children are most vulnerable and dependent groups on others in the society other than geriatric person .So appropriate healthcare seeking behavior of their caregivers are very much important to reduce morbidity & mortality and improve healthy life . Materials & Methods-This was a cross-sectional study was conducted at rural area of West Bengal among 180 caregivers of under 5 yr children with the help of predesigned pretested semistructured schedule. Study subject selected by systematic random sampling and data compilation were done MS Office Excel-2010 and data analysis were done by chi sq test in IBM SPSS version 2019 Results: Among 180 caregivers majority were 20-30yrs age gr(65%), joint family(64.4%), OBC(39.4%), Hindu(86.1%),Literate(71.1%), Homemaker(82.8%), having health insurance(76.1%),lower middle socio economic class(45%). Among children majority were 3-5yrs age gr(47.8%),female(50.6%), vaccinated not at par age (60.6%), second or more order child(59.4%). 20.6% caregivers had in appropriate healthcare seeking behavior for their children.Appropriate health seeking behavior among caregivers significantly associated with≤30yrs (ꭕ2=20.33,,df=1,p=.000007 ),nuclear family(ꭕ2=4.74, df=1,p=.029, )literate(ꭕ2=71.72,df=1,p=<.000001), homemaker(ꭕ2=28.19,df=1, p=.0000012), upper middle & upper lower SES(ꭕ2=4.44,df=1, p=.035),having insurance(ꭕ2=34.91,df=1, p=<.00001) but not significantly associate with religion(ꭕ2=1.58 ,df=1,p=.2) & gender of children(ꭕ2=.0058, df=1, p=.939). The majority of caregivers for children (71.7%) were depending generally on Govt health facility and a sizeable portion of caregivers(42.2%) collected medicine over the counter without consultation of medical professional and 35% caregivers generally approached AYUSH system of medicine. Conclusion- From this study it was concluded that appropriate health care seeking behavior among caregivers are significantly influenced by with ≤30yrs age gr , joint family ,occupation ,education , socio economic scale, health insurance In rural bengal primarily dependent on Govt health facility and a sizeable population still collected medicine over the counter with consultation of medical supervision