Care Seeking Behavior

Dr. H. Agus Widjaja MHA

 Caring and curing
In most societies people have a number of ways
of helping themselves when suffering from
physical discomfort or emotional distress.
They may, for examples:
Decide to rest, or take a home remedy
Ask advice from a friend, relative or neighbor
Consult a local priest, folk healer, or wise person,
Consult a doctor
(Cecil G. Helmans)
 Health care pluralism
Any society health care system cannot be
studied in isolation from other aspects of
the society. (especially its social, religious, political
and economic organization).
A system of health care has two inter-
related aspects:
A cultural aspect
A social aspect
 A cultural aspect
A cultural aspect including:
A basic concept,
theories,
normative practices, and
shared modes of perception
 A social aspect
A social aspect including
its organization into certain specified roles (such
as patient and doctor), and
rules governing relationship between these roles
in specialized setting.(such as hospital).
In most societies one form of health care,
(such as scientific medicine in the West), is
elevated above the other forms,.
 The three sectors of health care
There are three overlapping and interconnected sectors of
health care:
1. The popular sector
2. The folk sector, and
3. The professional sector

Each sector has its own ways of:

1) explaining and treating ill health,
2) defining who is the healer and who is the patient, and
3) specifying how healer and patient should interact in
their therape utic encounter.
 The Popular sector
Characteristics:-The lay,-Non professional-Non
specialist domain of society,
Where ill health is recognized and defined and health
care activities are initiated.
It includes all therapeutic options that people utilize,
without any payment and without consulting either
folk healers or medical practitioners
In this sector the main arena of health care is the
family; where most ill health is recognized and then
treated.
 The folk sector
Is especially large in non-industrial society
Certain individuals specialize in form of healing that
are sacred or secular, or mixture of the two
Wide variation in the types of folk healers,
From purely secular and technical experts, s. a : bone-
setters, midwives, toot-extractors, herbalist,
To spiritual healers, e. g ; clairvoyants and shamans.
Folk healers form heterogeneous group, with much
individual variation in style and outlook.
 Folk healer
Some time folk healers are organized into
associations of healer, with rules of entry, codes of
conduct and the sharing of information.
Most communities include a mixture of sacred and
secular folk healers,
in the study of African-American folk healer in low
income urban neighborhood in the USA, Snow has
described herb doctors, root doctors, spiritualist,
conjure men or women, Voodoo houngans or
mambos,
 Folk healers
Advantages:
The frequent involvement of the family in
diagnosis and treatment,
Healing the patients sickness places
responsibility on both patient and family to
participate in healing rites.
The focus of attention is not only the patient,
but also the reaction of the family and others
to the illness.
 Folk healer
People can become folk healer in a number of ways;
1. Inheritance
2. Position within a family
3. Signs and portents at birth
4. Revelation discovering one has the gift, which
may occur as an intense emotional experience
during an illness, dream or trance.
5. Apprenticeship to another healer.
6. Acquiring a particular skill on ones own.
 The professional sector
The organized, legally sanctioned healing
Also known as allopathy or biomedicine
Including, physicians (and specialists), paramedical
professions and physiotherapist
In most countries, scientific medicine is the basis of
the professional sector, but, according to Kleinmans
note, traditional medical systems may also become
professionalized, for examples; the Ayurvedic and
Unani medical college in India
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