Health care seeking behaviors in type 2 diabetic patients in East Azerbaijan

Background. Timely and effective use of health care services is essential to delay or prevent complications and reduce the burden of diabetes. Positive health care seeking behaviors can improve diabetes control and, as a result, reduce the incidence of the complications. So, this study aimed to investigate the status of health care seeking behaviors and affecting factors in type 2 diabetic patients. Materials and methods. This was a cross-sectional study. There were 1139 patients with type 2 diabetes aged > 18 years selected who referred to educational hospitals, Endocrinologist office, primary health care centers, and Clinics. Data collected using a researchermade questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS software version 22. Results. 36.3% of diabetic patients initially referred to a physician in the event of illness symptoms, and 70.7% of patients referred to a physician in case of exacerbating of disease symptoms. 58.4% of patients preferred to consult a specialist directly. 78.85 of patients reported that they had referred to a physician on a regular basis and 59.9% of patients followed up their treatment process on a regular basis. The physician was the main source of information for the majority of patients. Income, education and health insurance status, disease severity, chronicity of DM, the history of hospitalization due to DM were the affecting factors on health care seeking behaviors (p < 0.05). Conclusion. Most of the diabetics often did not follow the official structure of health care providing to manage their illness, and despite the referral system and family practitioner program more than half of the patients went directly to the specialist physician’s office. Factors related to the patient (an income and education status), disease characteristics (disease severity, chronicity of DM and the history of hospitalization due to DM) and health care system factors (type of the basic insurance and supplementary insurance status) affect the health care seeking behaviors.