“Patient Delay” Syndrome of Tuberculosis Patients

Abstract

The researcher conducted a study on the prevalence rate of Patient Delay as a health seeking behavior among the urban poor in Metro Manila. It was able to identify common factors that led to the said delay. The study also described the level of knowledge and attitudes and degree of social support among the respondents. The researcher was able to gather data through a combination of quantitative and qualitative designs. A survey tool comprising of questions on socio-demographics, nature of the respondent as TB patients, how they are supported by the society and the extent of their knowledge on Tuberculosis were included to specifically determine the common characteristics among respondents who practice patient delay from those who do not. In- depth interviews were conducted to Key-Informants from the Health Centers and from the pool of randomly selected respondents in order to validate and enrich the primary data gathered from the questionnaire. Statistical tools such as Cramer’s V was used to identify correlations between the factors and Patient delay and on the other hand, Independent t-Test was applied to determine significant differences on the participants’ level of knowledge and social support. After gathering the necessary data, the researcher found out that majority of the respondents were identified to be delayed for a month or more where factors such as civil status, religion, sex, occupation and age had a little effect on a patient’s health-seeking behavior. It was also discovered that all of the 121 participants in the study had high or enough social support from family, friends and community. It was therefore concluded that having high level of social support is not a concrete basis for predicting Patient Delay to happen. Poverty is the root of all cause. This has been mentioned and identified by most of the interviewees of what may have led them to the delay of seeking medical help. Problems branched out to the number of children, availability of time for check-up, occupation and level of awareness on TB which are all dependent and affected by poverty. Money issues are commonly raised up when it came to check-up fees and other medical costs such as x-ray and laboratory-'. People who were below the poverty line were most of the time the very individuals who had a big family, leaving mothers at home with her children trying to make the most of her husband’s scarce resources. The nature of job can be a cause of Tuberculosis and adding more injury, the nature of these jobs entail more hours, more physical stress but less income which resulted to no time and no money allotted for health. Since financial crisis was the main problem of all the people belonging to below the poverty line, health condition became their last priority and as a result they had compromised everything- from their health status to over-all functioning and caused stress to both physical and mental aspects. In this regard, people should bear in mind that prevention is still better than cure. With the efforts of Barangay Health Workers, the problems regarding financial issues as a hindrance to seeking medical consultation are partly solved through free check-ups, community awareness and information dissemination.