A Study to Assess the Determinants Affecting the Health Seeking Behavior and their Effect on Utilization of Antenatal Services among the Pregnant Women: A Cross - Sectional Study

Introduction: Good Maternal Health is the foundation of a healthy society. The maternal health is influenced by the women’s own health seeking behavior. The present study aims to highlight the factors affecting the maternal health seeking behavior of pregnant women at Vadodara and the effect on utilization of these factors on the utilization of the ante natal care services at health center. Material & Methods: The study is undertaken at five different PHCs of Vadodara district from each of the zones. The sample size of the study comprises of 83 pregnant women who willingly gave consent to participate in the study and were in their second or third trimester. The data was gathered using the primary method of data collection through a schedule to assess the factors affecting the health seeking behavior of pregnant women. The data was assessed on a five point likert scale and analyzed using SPSS version 21. Findings: There were 17 women showing positive health seeking behavior, 40 showing moderate and 26 showing the negative health seeking behavior related to institution and system determinants. There were 26 women showing positive health seeking behavior, 38 showing moderate behavior and 19 showing negative health seeking behavior with respect to social and cultural determinants. There were 16 women showing positive health seeking behavior, 20 showing moderate behavior and 47 showing negative health seeking behavior with respect to individual and household determinants. There is no difference in the health seeking behavior of the pregnant women for all the determinants as the p value of the Kruskalwallis test is non-significant (p value more than 0.05). Conclusion: The study highlights that the female may possess a negative health seeking behavior with respect to her individual and household determinant but a positive health seeking behavior with respect to institution and system or social and cultural belief may be a motivating factor in utilization of the services at health center in the prescribed manner. The study focuses that health seeking behavior with respect to one determinant cannot be the deciding factor but an aggregate of behavior influenced by an interaction of various determinant affect the utilization of the services.