DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2014.v02i02.052

Pages: 726-729

Utilization of health services depends on its social legitimization in the household – in other words, its affirmation and endorsement of health seeking behavior. The Objectives were to study the reasons of missed opportunities of persons accompanying the patients regarding health care services and to assess the knowledge of persons accompanying patients about availability of health care services in hospital. The present cross-sectional study was carried out during October 2012 to December 2012 at Shri Guru Govind Singh Memorial Hospital, Nanded. The purposive sampling was used to enrol the individuals from who were accompanying the patients for various hospital services during study period. The predesigned questionnaire was used to collect the relevant information regarding the objectives. Data was entered in Microsoft Excel and analyzed by using statistical software open epi 2.3 version for chisquare tests. 400 persons were included in our study. Out of 400, 56% were females, 50% belongs to age group between 20-40 years, 43.75% illiterate, 82% belongs to rural area, 84.38% belongs socioeconomic status class V. 64% persons had the knowledge of health services provided in the hospital about drugs, food and investigation. 51.25% knew that surgeries are also being conducted in hospital. 80% persons were not utilizing the health care services available in the hospital. Most common reasons for non utilization of health services were preoccupied worries, lack of time and unknown place. Preoccupied worries, lack of time, unknown place were most common reasons for missed opportunities of persons accompanying the patients regarding health care services.