Impacts of Predisposing, Enabling and Need Factors in Utilization of Healthcare Services in a Catholic Hospital in Nigeria

Healthcare service utilization is an expression that fittingly describes the use of medical care for the purpose of maintaining one’s health and well-being, preventing and/or treating health problems or obtaining information about one’s health status and prognosis. The main purpose of the study was to determine impacts of predisposing, enabling and need factors in utilization of healthcare services in a Catholic Hospital in Nigeria within first quarter of 2024. In the cross-sectional descriptive study, a self-answered questionnaire was used for data collection, which contained features of demographics, socio-economic and health status of the respondents, like self-reported illness, consultation, hospitalization, expenditure and routine medication or rehabilitation. Most remarkably, the respondents mentioned that the medical facility nearest to them and that they used most was the community health center. They cited reasons for the medical facility they used most as availability of high-level medical technology/equipment as well as excellent services it offered. To address the findings of the study, a healthcare service utilization enhancement plan was proposed for practical and educational interventions to boost healthcare service utilization. That the study was cross-sectional descriptive and assessed the impacts not associations among these factors and utilization of a Catholic hospital in Nigeria were major limitations. These limitations lied in inability to establish reason why the respondents were found in a Catholic hospital, yet they indicated that community health center was closest to them as well as the health facility they used most. Future researchers on the topic might take care some of these lapses.