ABSTRACT

Abstract

Women are the highest number of patients attended to in all health care facilities either as in or out patient or mother of a patient at both maternal and child welfare clinics because they are more vulnerable to ill-health conditions with their children. They tend to seek health care at the most accessible locations for so many reasons ranging from socio-economic to cultural factors. In the rural areas, women seek health from faith-based health outlets and traditional health units more than the medical centres for several reasons which should be of concern to health promotion education practitioners because of the consequences of such unhealthy practices. Seven hundred and fifty (n=750) women were randomly selected from one of the rural and river- rine local governments in Ogun State Nigeria. Socio-cultural factors on health seeking behavior questionnaire (SCFHSBQ) r=0.80, Economic Factors Questionnaire (EFQ) r=0.82 and Traditional Health Behaviour Questionnaire (THBQ) r=0.76 and Faith Based Health seeking Behaviour Questionnaire (FBHBQ) r=0.92 were used as instrument for data collection. Data collected were analysed using inferential statistics of multiple regression and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The findings revealed that social factors of age and religious affiliation has negative effects on faith based and traditional health seeking behavior while family structure predicts FBHSB positively. Economic factors of occupation and income affect FBHSB negatively and positively respectively. It is recommended that improved health education is necessary for the improved health seeking behavior of the rural women and efforts should be made to improve the available health facilities in the rural areas.