Psychological factors

People that use health services are divided into 4 categories: Age, gender, social classes, and social psychological factors. Very young and elderly people are more likely to utilize health services. Women are more likely to use health services compared to men. This is because women usually need health services more during pregnancy and childbirth. People corresponding to lower social classes are less likely to use health services compared to people of higher social classes. This is because people in lower social classes have lesser access to quality health services. Finally, some people have negative predispositions towards health services for a variety of reasons. This can result in some people refraining from seeking health services.

The four stages of delay behavior are: appraisal, illness, utilization and scheduling delay. Appraisal delay encompasses the period of time when somebody notices that there is something wrong with their health. In this stage, a person needs to decide whether their decline in health is due to an illness or not. If a person decides on the former then they stay in appraisal delay. If they decide on the latter then they move on to the next stager of behavioral delay. During Illness delay, a person needs to decide whether their illness symptoms are serious enough to go the hospital over. If the illness symptoms are deemed serious enough then the person moves on to the third stage of delay behavior. During utilization delay, a person considers whether it’s worth it financially to visit the hospital. For many people, visiting the hospital is very expensive, and a legitimate reason enough to delay visiting the hospital. Finally, scheduling encompasses the period of time it takes for someone to schedule a hospital visit.

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