ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The health status of a country and its socioeconomic development is determined majorly by the health seeking behavior of its populace.In developing countries like Nigeria, undergraduates experience health problems such as headaches, cough, fever, sexually transmitted infections, urinary tract infections and more. This may result from academic stress and youthful risk taking behaviors. Adoption of appropriate health seeking behavior is important in reducing morbidity and mortality that may result following an illness. OBJECTIVES: To assess the health-seeking behavior among undergraduate students of the University of Benin, Benin City, Edo State, with a view to improving their health outcome. METHODOLOGY: An analytical cross-sectional study was carried out among 630 students. Simple random sampling technique was used to select the respondents. Ethical approval was obtained from the University of Benin Teaching Hospital. Informed consent was also obtained from the respondents before administering the questionnaires. Pretested interviewer administered questionnaires were used for data collection. All data were coded, entered and analyzed using IBM SPSS version 25.0 software. The association between socio-demographic variables and types of HSB was analyzed using Chi-squared test and Fisher’s exact test where applicable. Descriptive data were expressed as frequencies, percentages and means + standard deviation. The level of significance was set at p <0.05 at 95% confidence interval. Results were presented in forms of prose, tables, bar charts and pie charts. RESULTS: Most of the respondents 364 (57.8%) were within the age groups 21-25 years, females accounted for a higher proportion of respondents 386 (61.3%). Almost all of the respondents 614 (97.5%) were Singles and Christians. A higher proportion of the respondents 112 (17.8%) were in the faculty of education. Almost all respondents 575 (91.3%) had health problems in the past 12 months. Almost all respondents 575 (91.3%) had health problems in xiv the past 12 months. Headache was the most common symptom experienced, 526 (91.5%). One hundred and thirty seven, 137 (23.8%) respondents had appropriate HSB. The factors affecting health seeking behavior were effectiveness of treatment, proximity to health source, severity of symptom, confidentiality, competence of health worker and individual health belief. The socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents was not found to have any determining effect on the Health seeking behavior of the respondents (Age OR = 0.838, p = 0.303; Sex OR = 1.016, p = 0.939; Religion OR = 0.856, p = 0.814; Marital status OR = 0.188, p = 0.072; Father’s occupation OR = 0.903, p = 0.737; Mother’s occupation OR = 2.309, p = 0.086). CONCLUSION: The common health problem experienced by undergraduate students of the University of Benin includes; headache, body pain, fever, weakness/fatigue and cough. Almost all had headache while about three-fourth had body pain, cough, fever and weakness/fatigue. Slightly above three quarter of undergraduate students have inappropriate health-seeking behavior. The determinants of health seeking behavior were effectiveness of treatment, proximity to health source, severity of symptom, confidentiality, competence of health worker and individual health belief. Enlightenment of students by the University management on the benefits of appropriate HSB and the adverse effects of inappropriate HSB is important in improving health outcomes.
