Health Care Seeking Behavior of Elderly People in Rural Part of Jimma Zone, South West Ethiopia

Abstract Background: Aging is the process of becoming older. Old age comprises age group of 60 year and above. Health care seeking behavior is any activity undertaken by individuals who perceive themselves to have a health problem or to be ill for the purpose of finding an appropriate therapy. Though health care seeking behavior of peoples have significant role for their health, limited number of studies were done so far in Ethiopia particularly among elderly peoples. To the best of our knowledge health seeking behavior of elderly people in Ethiopia haven’t been addressed well by previous researchers. Hence, the objective of this study was to measure health care seeking behavior and associated factors among elderly people in rural parts of Jimma zone, south west Ethiopia, 2020. Methods: Community based cross-sectional study was conducted among elderly peoples living in rural parts of Jimma Zone from March 10 to30, 2020. Multi stage sampling technique was used to select study participants. A total of 590 elderly peoples were included in the study. Data were collected using interviewer administered questionnaire. The data were entered into Epi data version 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 23 for analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to identify factors associated with health seeking behavior. P – Value ≤ 0.05 was used to declare statistical significance.Result: The level of health care seeking behavior of elderly peoples in rural part of Jimma zone was 89.2%. Being female [AOR= 0.422(95%CI: 0.204–0.874)], good perception towards health facility[AOR= 20.676(95%CI: 5.077–84.205)], service option availability [AOR=8.597(95%CI: 1.998 – 36.989)], affordable price of modern health service [AOR=3.589(95%CI:1.631–7.900)], awareness about the cause of their sickness[AOR=6.060(95%CI:1.539–23.866)], and having good housing condition[AOR=5.017(95%CI=1.924–13.082) were predictors of health care seeking behavior. Conclusion: Health care seeking behavior of elderly people in rural part of Jimma zone was higher than what was reported in many other studies. Special attention is need from government and concerned stakeholders to take action on the identified factors of health care seeking behavior of elderly people.