Determinants of Choice for Health Care Providers in Informal Urban Settlement in Kenya: a Case of Kariobangi Estate

Abstract

Healthcare is a basic human right and people seek services in different places. The determinants of health-seeking behavior range from socioeconomic factors to providers' attributes. Kariobangi area of Nairobi is home to several businesses and people of different sociodemographic characteristics. The residents live in congested polluted environment and are prone to diseases. They are not well endowed and accessibility to quality health services was a challenge. The choice of the providers was dependent on several factors that were not known since no study has been carried out to unearth them. The study objective was to determine these factors that influence the choice of healthcare providers in Kariobangi. A cross-section study design was used, where 301 participants were involved that were selected using systematic random sampling. Data was collected using a questionnaire, cleaned and entered into STATA version 14. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. A Multinomial Logit was used to determine the relationship between the choice of health care provider and explanatory variables. Most residents depended on public health facilities for services and were used as the base category. At a 5% level of significance, poor quality of treatment decreased the probability of seeking services by 23%. The negative attitude of healthcare workers decreased it 22%. And participants suffering from communicable diseases had a 14.5% probability of visiting. An additional hour of waiting time enhanced the chances of visiting these facilities by 15.1% at ceteris paribus. There is a need to improve the quality of services in public health facilities by stocking adequate medicines as well as reducing waiting time. This will enhance accessibility of health services to the residents of Kariobangi.