IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v138y2015icp225-233.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effects of utility evaluations, biomedical knowledge and modernization on intention to exclusively use biomedical health facilities among rural households in Mozambique

Author

Listed:
  • Mukolo, Abraham
  • Cooil, Bruce
  • Victor, Bart

Abstract

In resource-limited settings, the choice between utilizing biomedical health services and/or traditional healers is critical to the success of the public health mission. In the literature, this choice has been predicted to be influenced by three major factors: knowledge about biomedical etiologies; cultural modernization; and rational choice. The current study investigated all three of these predicted determinants, applying data from a general household survey conducted in 2010 in Zambézia Province of Mozambique involving 1045 randomly sampled rural households. Overall, more respondents (N = 802) intended to continue to supplement their biomedical healthcare with traditional healer services in comparison with those intending to utilize biomedical care exclusively (N = 243). The findings strongly supported the predicted association between rational utility (measured as satisfaction with the quality of service and results from past care) with the future intention to continue to supplement or utilize biomedical care exclusively. Odds of moving away from supplementation increase by a factor of 2.5 if the respondent reported seeing their condition improve under government/private biomedical care. Odds of staying with supplementation increase by a factor 3.1 if the respondent was satisfied with traditional care and a factor of 16 if the condition had improved under traditional care. Modernization variables (education, income, religion, and Portuguese language skills) were relevant and provided a significant component of the best scientific model. Amount of biomedical knowledge was not a significant predictor of choice. There was a small effect on choice from knowing the limitations of biomedical care. The findings have implications for public healthcare promotion activities in areas where biomedical care is introduced as an alternative to traditional healing.

Suggested Citation

  • Mukolo, Abraham & Cooil, Bruce & Victor, Bart, 2015. "The effects of utility evaluations, biomedical knowledge and modernization on intention to exclusively use biomedical health facilities among rural households in Mozambique," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 225-233.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:138:y:2015:i:c:p:225-233
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.06.013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953615003457
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.06.013?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Victor, Bart & Fischer, Edward F. & Cooil, Bruce & Vergara, Alfredo & Mukolo, Abraham & Blevins, Meridith, 2013. "Frustrated Freedom: The Effects of Agency and Wealth on Wellbeing in Rural Mozambique," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 30-41.
    2. Hadley K Herbert & Anne CC Lee & Aruna Chandran & Igor Rudan & Abdullah H Baqui, 2012. "Care Seeking for Neonatal Illness in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(3), pages 1-15, March.
    3. Hausmann Muela, Susanna & Muela Ribera, Joan & Mushi, Adiel K. & Tanner, Marcel, 2002. "Medical syncretism with reference to malaria in a Tanzanian community," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 403-413, August.
    4. Azusa Sato & Joan Costa-Font, 2014. "The Hedonic Procedural Effect of Traditional Medicines," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 15(5), pages 1061-1084, October.
    5. Moses, Stephen & Muia, Esther & Bradley, Janet E. & Nagelkerke, Nico J. D. & Ngugi, Elizabeth N. & Njeru, Erastus K. & Eldridge, Gloria & Olenja, Joyce & Wotton, Kay & Plummer, Francis A. & Brunham, R, 1994. "Sexual behaviour in Kenya: Implications for sexually transmitted disease transmission and control," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 39(12), pages 1649-1656, December.
    6. Qian, Guoqi & Field, Chris, 2002. "Law of iterated logarithm and consistent model selection criterion in logistic regression," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 101-112, January.
    7. Hadley K Herbert & Anne CC Lee & Aruna Chandran & Igor Rudan & Abdullah H. Baqui, 2012. "Care Seeking for Neonatal Illness in Low- and Middle- Income Countries: A Systematic Review," Working Papers id:4895, eSocialSciences.
    8. Sato, Azusa, 2012. "Does socio-economic status explain use of modern and traditional health care services?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(8), pages 1450-1459.
    9. de-Graft Aikins, Ama, 2005. "Healer shopping in Africa: new evidence from rural-urban qualitative study of diabetes experiences," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 49550, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bich-Tram Huynh & Elsa Kermorvant-Duchemin & Rattanak Chheang & Frederique Randrianirina & Abdoulaye Seck & Elisoa Hariniaina Ratsima & Zafitsara Zo Andrianirina & Jean-Baptiste Diouf & Armya Youssouf, 2021. "Severe bacterial neonatal infections in Madagascar, Senegal, and Cambodia: A multicentric community-based cohort study," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(9), pages 1-19, September.
    2. Tariku Nigatu Bogale & Abebaw Gebeyehu Worku & Alemayehu Worku Yalew & Gashaw Andargie Bikis & Zemene Tigabu Kebede, 2018. "Mothers treatment seeking intention for neonatal danger signs in northwest Ethiopia: A structural equation modeling," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(12), pages 1-15, December.
    3. Sato, Azusa, 2012. "Does socio-economic status explain use of modern and traditional health care services?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(8), pages 1450-1459.
    4. Ashrita Saran & Howard White & Kerry Albright & Jill Adona, 2020. "Mega‐map of systematic reviews and evidence and gap maps on the interventions to improve child well‐being in low‐ and middle‐income countries," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(4), December.
    5. Roxanne J. Kovacs & Mylene Lagarde & John Cairns, 2019. "Measuring patient trust: Comparing measures from a survey and an economic experiment," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(5), pages 641-652, May.
    6. P. M. Amegbor, 2017. "An Assessment of Care-Seeking Behavior in Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa District: A Triple Pluralistic Health Sector Approach," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(2), pages 21582440177, June.
    7. Wa Ntita Serge Kabongo & Josue Mbonigaba, 2017. "Demand-side Determinants of Access to Healthcare Services: Empirical Evidence from Africa," SPOUDAI Journal of Economics and Business, SPOUDAI Journal of Economics and Business, University of Piraeus, vol. 67(4), pages 3-22, October-D.
    8. Giulia Ferrari, 2022. "What is wellbeing for rural South African women? Textual analysis of focus group discussion transcripts and implications for programme design and evaluation," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-15, December.
    9. Kamat, Vinay R., 2006. ""I thought it was only ordinary fever!" cultural knowledge and the micropolitics of therapy seeking for childhood febrile illness in Tanzania," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(12), pages 2945-2959, June.
    10. Jiannan Li & Bocong Yuan, 2019. "Rural‐urban disparity in risk exposure to involuntary social health insurance transition in China: An investigation of chronic disease patients' mental health problems," International Journal of Health Planning and Management, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(4), pages 1760-1773, October.
    11. Giovannini, Peter & Reyes-García, Victoria & Waldstein, Anna & Heinrich, Michael, 2011. "Do pharmaceuticals displace local knowledge and use of medicinal plants? Estimates from a cross-sectional study in a rural indigenous community, Mexico," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(6), pages 928-936, March.
    12. World Bank, 2005. "Health Service Delivery and Utilization in Timor-Leste : A Qualitative Study," World Bank Publications - Reports 12461, The World Bank Group.
    13. Federica Cavazzoni & Alec Fiorini & Guido Veronese, 2022. "How Do We Assess How Agentic We Are? A Literature Review of Existing Instruments to Evaluate and Measure Individuals' Agency," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 1125-1153, February.
    14. Ensor, Jonathan & Tuhkanen, Heidi & Boyland, Michael & Salamanca, Albert & Johnson, Karlee & Thomalla, Frank & Lim Mangada, Ladylyn, 2021. "Redistributing resilience? Deliberate transformation and political capabilities in post-Haiyan Tacloban," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    15. Jin, Man & Fang, Yixin & Zhao, Lincheng, 2005. "Variable selection in generalized linear models with canonical link functions," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 71(4), pages 371-382, March.
    16. Guoqi Qian & Yuehua Wu & Qing Shao, 2009. "A Procedure for Estimating the Number of Clusters in Logistic Regression Clustering," Journal of Classification, Springer;The Classification Society, vol. 26(2), pages 183-199, August.
    17. Thomas De HOOP & Luuk Van KEMPEN, 2010. "Trust In Health Providers As A Catalyst For Malaria Prevention: Heterogeneous Impacts Of Health Education In Rural Ghana," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 48(3), pages 376-404, September.
    18. John W Stanifer & Uptal D Patel & Francis Karia & Nathan Thielman & Venance Maro & Dionis Shimbi & Humphrey Kilaweh & Matayo Lazaro & Oliver Matemu & Justin Omolo & David Boyd & Comprehensive Kidney D, 2015. "The Determinants of Traditional Medicine Use in Northern Tanzania: A Mixed-Methods Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(4), pages 1-17, April.
    19. Paula Carrasco & Rodrigo Ceni & Ivonne Perazzo & Gonzalo Salas, 2019. "Are not any silver in the cloud? Subjective well-being among deprived young people," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 19-09, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    20. Azusa Sato & Joan Costa-Font, 2014. "The Hedonic Procedural Effect of Traditional Medicines," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 15(5), pages 1061-1084, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:138:y:2015:i:c:p:225-233. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.