GHENT UNIVERSITY Karoline FONCK - International Centre for ...

Most of the patients are low-income earners. The clinic has a well-equipped laboratory with a
staff highly trained in STD management.
Between February and May 1998, a convenience sample of new patients was interviewed by
trained research assistants who approached the patients leaving the clinic. Whoever
happened to be seen leaving the clinicians' room or pharmacy was asked to participate in the
study. After giving verbal informed consent to participate, patients were interviewed using a
detailed pretested questionnaire covering social and demographic information, patterns of
health-seeking behavior, and sexual behavior. The questionnaires were linked later to the
medical records. The questionnaires were available in both English and Kiswahili, so the
interviews were conducted in the language most comfortable to the patient.
All the survey responses were entered into a computerized database using SPSS for
Windows, version 7.0 (SPSS, Chicago, IL). Cross-tabulation and descriptive statistics were
calculated using χ 2 tests for categorical variables.
Results
Most of the patients recruited for the study accepted to participate, and 471 people were
interviewed. Only 21 patients refused Participation, mainly because of time constraints.
Table 1 summarizes the demographic characteristics of the study group. Half of the
participants were women, who were younger and more often married than the men. There
was no difference in education level between the genders, but almost half of the women
reported not having any income, as compared with only 11% of the men.
The participants were asked what they would do if they had a general health problem.
According to their self-reports, 57% of the women would prefer public health services, as
compared with 57% of the men, who more often would opt for private facilities. Mission
hospitals and chemists were mentioned less often as a first choice. Traditional healers would
be visited by only two of the men, and by none of the women.
The choice of a particular health facility for general health care was determined mainly by
convenience of the location (men 56%, women 55%), privacy (men 18%, women 17%), and
affordability (men 12%, women 18%) of the services.
HEALTHCARE-SEEKING BEHAVIOR AND SEXUAL BEHAVIOR IN NAIROBI 39