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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, 5153] 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 [1217, 1923, 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]