Health seeking behavior in women of Nepal

Health services in Nepal are struggling with affordability, accessibility and availability. For the women in patriarchal society and more involved in household activities the struggle is real.

Hospitals, health posts, pharmacies, traditional healers, witch doctors are some trusted health service providers women preferably go else they do self care and sometimes ignores the health status while caring about rest of the family. Here we will discuss about some of these issues which are very simply prevalent but has huge impact in overall burden of the disease.

Challenges in health seeking behavior in women:-

• Lack of knowledge
• Massive trust on witch doctors, ''Jhakris''
• Gender responsibilities
• Lack of empowerment
• Structure of family
• Social and cultural dimension of society
• Availability of services
• Motherhood
• Lack of income generating activities
• Behavior pattern
• Rude behavior of staffs
• Not ''serious'' enough for their health
• Lack of decision making power
• Lack of time commitment
• Lack of insurance
• Child marriage
• Government vs private health service
• Stigma

Health seeking practice is directly related to burden of disease. It is important to assure the positive health seeking behavior to women by providing sufficient awareness and motivation to visit health institutions in order to assure the basic rights of women and for the prosperity of the nation. 

'' A healthy women leads to overall a healthy family"'