Abstract:
ackground: Currently there are increased cases of men presenting with Lower Urinary
Tract Symptoms (LUTS) especially in low resource countries. These symptoms may or may
not be related to prostate cancer and health seeking behaviours are not clear.
Purpose: To establish the influence of patient related factors on health seeking behaviours
for Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms (LUTS) among men attending surgical outpatient clinic
at Meru hospital, Kenya.
Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional study design was used. The study population involved
120 men suffering from LUTS, 2 physicians and 2 nurses. Questionnaires and interview
guides were used for data collection. Study period was from August 2018 to March 2020.
Results: Majority (67.0%) of the patients with LUTS were aged between 61-70 years. Also,
the majority (68.8%) of the respondents had primary level of education. The findings also
pointed out majority (72.0%) of the patients were farmers with income level of below Ksh.
20,000. Logistic regression was used whereby P-values determine the statistical significance
of results with cut off set at (p ≤0.05). The inferential statistics pointed out that patient related
factors test items had a statistical significant influence since the p-values were found to be
less than 0.05 at 95% confidence interval.
Conclusion: There was a significant negative influence of patient related factors such as
lack of knowledge, low income levels and distance to health care facilities on health seeking
practices. Therefore patients seek medical attention when quality of their lives has been
threatened. The study recommends adopting measures of rising awareness on need for
seeking early medical attention and initiate outreach health services in underserved areas or
through telehealth.
