Influence of Health-Seeking Behavior on Treatment Initiation of Cancer Patients at a Tertiary Care Hospital in Varanasi.

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.