Table 1 The antecedents of health-seeking behavior
From: Evolutionary concept analysis of health seeking behavior in nursing: a systematic review
| Antecedents | Supporting references |
|---|---|
| 3–1: Social factors | ➢ Social networks [20, 21] and families [22] have solid roles in decision making for seeking health. |
| ➢ Number of other sick people and children under 5 years old in the family [22] and birth order of children [44]. | |
| ➢ Family size [14, 44] | |
| 3–2: Cultural factors | ➢ Cultural beliefs about health which lead to self-care as well as using home remedies and consultation [13, 16, 19, 35, 37, 47, 51–53] as one of the barriers to health-seeking behavior |
| ➢ Gender inequalities exist in all communities and social classes and have negative effects on women health [13, 16, 38, 49, 54], women autonomy [17, 55] and men’s dominant role [13, 20] | |
| ➢ Cultural preferences [15, 16] | |
| ➢ Traditional interventions and professional attitude [37, 41, 45] | |
| ➢ Superstition, rumors and legends [37] | |
| ➢ Fear of stigma [45] | |
| ➢ Previous and current perception of disease [30, 45] | |
| ➢ Understanding the value of health [38] | |
| ➢ Cultural taboos [51] | |
| ➢ Negative cultural experiences such as pressure to succeed, win or physical violence [44] | |
| ➢ Expectations of aging [12, 22, 39, 41, 56, 57] | |
| ➢ Absence of the head of household or other key decision makers [54] | |
| ➢ Head of household’s awareness, occupation and level of education [15, 41, 46, 49] | |
| ➢ Ethnicity [16, 22, 56] | |
| ➢ Marital status [22, 36] | |
| ➢ Denial of disease, especially by women [45]. | |
| 3–3: Economic Factors | ➢ Family income [14, 16, 17, 20, 22, 23, 38, 41, 42, 44, 47, 51, 56] |
| ➢ Treatment and commute costs [13, 19, 20, 57] | |
| ➢ Having insurance [16, 22, 51] | |
| 3–4: Disease pattern and issues related to health services | ➢ Physical access to health services [12–17, 19–23, 41, 51] |
| ➢ Distance to health service center [14, 46, 58] | |
| ➢ Poor performance of health services [13, 58] | |
| ➢ Availability of drugs [13, 17, 19, 51, 58] | |
| ➢ Can buy OTC medications without or with consulting a pharmacist [19, 47, 51] Expected quality of services [11, 15, 50] | |
| ➢ Pluralism or existence of different health systems in a cultural setting [23, 35, 49] | |
| ➢ Attitude toward health personnel [13, 41] | |
| ➢ Perceived severity of illness [13, 22, 41, 42] | |
| ➢ Knowledge and duration of illness [22] | |
| ➢ Lack of suitable referral system [23, 32] |