Health Seeking Behavior of Women with Hypertension and their Control of Blood Pressure: A Non-Experimental Approach

A descriptive, non-experimental study was conducted among the hypertensive women attending the Hypertension clinic at Primary Health Centre, Pangappara. Blood pressure was checked and women were categorised into two as women with normal blood pressure and women with elevated blood pressure. After obtaining the informed consent from the participants, data were collected using structured interview schedule and their health seeking behaviour was identified retrospectively using interview method. Findings of the study showed that majority (84.6 %) of women with normal blood pressure had good health seeking behaviour whereas among women with elevated blood pressure, only 14.1 % had good health seeking behaviour. Factors affecting the health seeking behaviour of women with Hypertension were analysed and found out that, source of knowledge, availability of health care centre, accessibility to health care centre, duration of travel to health care centre, availability of antihypertensive drugs, financial assistance from health insurance or from family and availability of a person to accompany to health care centre were having a positive influence in health seeking behaviour of women with Hypertension. Presence of knowledge seeking behaviour regarding Hypertension, attitude towards health care and social support system of women were also found to have a positive influence in health seeking behaviour of women. Health seeking behaviour in women with Hypertension has been investigated only to a limited extent in India, especially in Kerala. The aim of the study was to explore health seeking behaviour of women with Hypertension and to find out the various factors affecting the health seeking behaviour of women. The study concluded that Hypertensive women with good health seeking behaviour have better control over their blood pressure.