{"title":"Influence of Health-Seeking Behavior on Treatment Initiation of Cancer Patients at a Tertiary Care Hospital in Varanasi.","authors":"Nishu Kesh, Manoj Pandey, Sangeeta Kansal","doi":"10.4103/ijcm.ijcm_469_23","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, and in order to prevent it, it is vital to understand cancer patients' health-seeking behavior that contributes to patient delays in receiving cancer treatment globally; however, no similar studies have been conducted in India. Therefore, this study made an effort to know health-seeking behavior among delayed cancer patients receiving treatment at a tertiary care hospital, Varanasi.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>A cross-sectional study was conducted at the Department of Surgical Oncology OPD, Sir Sunder Lal Hospital, IMS, BHU, Varanasi. Randomly selected 440 registered patients were interviewed with the help of semi-structured questionnaire. Binary logistic regression analysis and 2-test were used in this study.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Out of total 440 patients included in this study, 207 (47.05%) were males and 233 (52.95%) were females. The majority (59.32%) of patients were more than 45 years of age group. Most (80%) of the patients had delay in cancer treatment of more than 60 days from onset of symptoms. Only 29.55% of patients were aware of any symptoms of Cancer. Those patients who were doing self-medication (<i>P</i>=0.03) and did not attend any cancer screening program (<i>P</i>=0.04) showed a statistically significant association with delayed initiation of treatment. Patients referred from another centre (<i>P</i> = 0.03) also show a significant association with delayed treatment initiation. Cancer patients who visited the screening program (AOR= 0.22, <i>P</i>=0.003) were significantly associated with a lower likelihood of delayed treatment initiation.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>The study showed that 80% of patients were delayed in seeking treatment for Cancer and highly influenced by low awareness, self-medication and visiting multiple health centres for diagnosis and treatment. Therefore, there is a strong need to address the reasons for the delay in seeking treatment.</p>","PeriodicalId":45040,"journal":{"name":"Indian Journal of Community Medicine","volume":"50 3","pages":"445-452"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12156084/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Indian Journal of Community Medicine","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.4103/ijcm.ijcm_469_23","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/10/8 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL & OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, and in order to prevent it, it is vital to understand cancer patients' health-seeking behavior that contributes to patient delays in receiving cancer treatment globally; however, no similar studies have been conducted in India. Therefore, this study made an effort to know health-seeking behavior among delayed cancer patients receiving treatment at a tertiary care hospital, Varanasi.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at the Department of Surgical Oncology OPD, Sir Sunder Lal Hospital, IMS, BHU, Varanasi. Randomly selected 440 registered patients were interviewed with the help of semi-structured questionnaire. Binary logistic regression analysis and 2-test were used in this study.
Results: Out of total 440 patients included in this study, 207 (47.05%) were males and 233 (52.95%) were females. The majority (59.32%) of patients were more than 45 years of age group. Most (80%) of the patients had delay in cancer treatment of more than 60 days from onset of symptoms. Only 29.55% of patients were aware of any symptoms of Cancer. Those patients who were doing self-medication (P=0.03) and did not attend any cancer screening program (P=0.04) showed a statistically significant association with delayed initiation of treatment. Patients referred from another centre (P = 0.03) also show a significant association with delayed treatment initiation. Cancer patients who visited the screening program (AOR= 0.22, P=0.003) were significantly associated with a lower likelihood of delayed treatment initiation.
Conclusion: The study showed that 80% of patients were delayed in seeking treatment for Cancer and highly influenced by low awareness, self-medication and visiting multiple health centres for diagnosis and treatment. Therefore, there is a strong need to address the reasons for the delay in seeking treatment.
期刊介绍：
The Indian Journal of Community Medicine (IJCM, ISSN 0970-0218), is the official organ & the only official journal of the Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine (IAPSM). It is a peer-reviewed journal which is published Quarterly. The journal publishes original research articles, focusing on family health care, epidemiology, biostatistics, public health administration, health care delivery, national health problems, medical anthropology and social medicine, invited annotations and comments, invited papers on recent advances, clinical and epidemiological diagnosis and management; editorial correspondence and book reviews.
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