Medical help seeking behaviour of injury patients in a community in Bangladesh.
While looking for a valid source of injury information in developing countries, it is important to know the help-seeking pattern of injury patients. A population-based study of 3258 households was conducted to explore the flow of injury patients in a local area of Bangladesh. Trained field level health workers collected the information by face-to-face interviews with the head of households, using three pretested structured forms. A total of 191 injury cases and 18 injury deaths were identified with a reference period of 15 d and 5 y, respectively. The estimated annual incidence rate of injury is 311 per 1000 inhabitants per year. The majority of the injury cases were minor (70.7%) and occurred in the home area (42%) or workplace (42%). Of the total 191 injured people, 41 (21.5%) did not seek any type of treatment for their injury but almost all of these cases were simple. Only 23.3% of injury cases who sought any type of medical treatment, went to the hospital. All severe cases, 40% of the moderate cases, and only 12.5% of minor cases were attended to at a hospital for treatment of their injuries. Allopathic quack or medicine shop owners were consulted by 42% of the injury patients. Most of the educated people preferred hospital treatment for moderate injury cases. In injury deaths, 61.1% had no opportunity to receive treatment before death, and postmortem examinations were performed in 66.7% of cases.
Rahman
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F
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Institute of Child and Mother Health, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Andersson
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R
Svanström
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L
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001459:Bangladesh / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D015601:Injury Severity Score; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology