Social Pattern Of Seeking Medical Care In Rural Setting

Abstract

In this paper an attempt has been made to assess the perception and management of sickness among rural population in Haryana State. The relationship between medical care seeking behaviour with dependency scale and skepticism about medical care scale has also been explained. The dependency scale measures the degree of dependence on others for management of sickness and the skepticism scale highlights the degree of reliance on other systems of medicine than modern medical care for treatment of sickness in a person (Edward Suchman1995). This study is based on 273 households drawn from three villages of Beri Block in Rohtak District. Out of the 34 villages in block, one village named as PHC village was selected having institutional facility of primary health center and from it 10 percent of the total households were drawn on simple random sampling basis. The two other villages named as non PHC villages were drawn form those villages which were around 10-15 kilometers away from any health facility and out of these villages 50 percent of the households were selected. Information from all householders were collected through interview schedules. An attempt has also been made to establish a pattern of seeking medical care in terms of the socio-economic classification of villagers as well as its caste structure