Pem. Leenaars et al., SEEKING MEDICAL-CARE FOR A SEXUALLY-TRANSMITTED DISEASE - DETERMINANTS OF DELAY-BEHAVIOR, Psychology & health, 8(1), 1993, pp. 17-32
Control of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) is important considerin
g the high incidence of acute infections, complications and sequelae,
their social and economic impact and their role in increasing transmis
sion of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. Unfortunately, a common resp
onse to illness is to ''wait and see'' if symptoms persist, worsen or
subside. This study was conducted to identify determinants of delay-be
havior in a sample of individuals with STD-related symptoms (N = 585).
In total 27% of the sample waited more than four weeks before they so
ught medical treatment. Women, village inhabitants and heterosexual in
dividuals more often delayed than men, persons with a homosexual prefe
rence and persons living in small, medium sized and big cities. The de
lay-behavior shown by respondents with high-risk sexual behavior was e
qual to that of respondents with low-risk sexual behavior. Recurrent a
ttenders did not try to obtain medical treatment any sooner than those
who sought medical treatment for the first time. The Health Belief Mo
del was used to predict delay-behavior. The four delay-behavior groups
differed from each other with regard to anticipated infertility and a
nticipated skin-injury, the lack of need for a consultation, the attri
bution of STD-related symptoms to specific sexual behavior, partner pr
essure, acquiring information from mass media, and expectations about
the existence of the following service attributes: (1) quick cure; (2)
being prescribed proper medication; (3) walk-in consulting hours. Fur
thermore, personal characteristics, such as: habits, shame/embarrassme
nt and searching for the right physician were also related to delay-be
havior. However, discriminant analysis among two extreme delay-behavio
r groups (one week versus more than four weeks delay-behavior) reveale
d that their predictive power was rather small. From these findings we
may conclude that the utility of the Health Belief Model is limited i
n explaining delay-behavior in individuals with STD related symptoms.