Impact of Availability of Services on Health Care Seeking Behavior for Antenatal Care: A Cross-Sectional Study of Himachal Pradesh

Abstract

Background: Designing health care policies and programmes requires knowledge about health care seeking behavior so that that appropriate intervention can be planned. Health care seeking behavior is a complex outcome of many factors operating at various levels including availability and accessibility of healthcare services. Dependent on these determinants.Aim: to study the impact of the availability of healthcare facility on health care seeking behavior in Himachal Pradesh. Materials and methods:A pre-post-project cross-sectional survey was carried out in selected areas of two districts of Himachal Pradesh. Initially, 7698 women of reproductive age were surveyed using pre-designed and pre-tested proforma by the house to house visits. In addition, the women were informed about the newly made available Ayurveda services for certain conditions of antenatal care. The end line survey was conducted on representative samples of 400 women in the same area to know if there is any impact on the service seeking behavior among the women. Results:The health care seeking behavior towards Ayurveda significantly improved after the services were made available in the area. Conclusion:Health care-seeking behavior for Ayurveda among women for antenatal care depended largely on the availability and accessibility of services.