Health seeking behaviour in India: A review of the existing literature

Abstract

This review was carried out to collate the work of researcher in health-seeking behaviour in India, to discuss the methods used and highlight emerging theme. The method used for collecting information was through review of existing literature. The review of the existing literature on health-seeking behaviour in India was collected through online scholarly databases namely Google Scholar, JSTOR, Medline and Academic Search. In total, 30 articles were reviewed with a range of different methodologies. Community-based survey was the most common and retrospective method was applied by most of the researcher in the study. A variety of illness/medical conditions have been covered in the reviewed literature. The emerging themes in the review included preference of private health care over public health care, self-medication, traditional and informal healers, decision making regarding seeking health care, and non-utilization of any form of health care.