Health-care-seeking behaviour among university students in Lebanon
Open accessAbstract
This cross-sectional study assessed the health-care-seeking behaviour, barriers to accessing care and associated factors among a sample of 543 Lebanese students at Saint-Joseph University. Data were collected on health-care-seeking behaviour for health issues in the previous 12 months using an anonymous questionnaire. Health-care-seeking behaviour was categorized as: formal (professional help sought); informal relational (help sought from friends/family); informal personal (self-help). The health issues examined were: physical, psychological, social and relational, sexual, drug, alcohol and smoking. When facing health-related issues, the students tended to seek informal health care. Formal health-care-seeking behaviour was almost non-existent for psychological issues (3.3%), relational and social issues (1.8%), and issues related to substance use (5.1%). The barriers to seeking formal health care fell into 2 categories: accessibility and relational. To encourage young people to access formal health care, specific health services should be provided for them where they are assured of confidentiality and understanding.
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The finding that females perceived more overall barriers may be related to higher rates of females seeking help for mental health problems compared to males.
“However, this may be related to higher rates of females seeking help for mental health problems compared to males [31, 33, 37, 42, 48, 53, 58, 61, 76].”
From What are the barriers, facilitators and interventions targeting help-seeking behaviours for common mental health problems in adolescents? A systematic review (2020) · cites this paper as [37]
The Discussion reports that female students had more psychological issues, but says gender differences in formal help-seeking were evident only for sexual health issues. The Health-care-seeking behaviour section adds that comparisons by sex for psychological issues were uninformative; it does not report higher mental-health help-seeking among females. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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- Authors
- El Kahi, H. A., Abi Rizk, G. Y., Hlais, S. A., & Adib, S. M.
- Affiliations
- Saint Joseph University (LB)
- Venue
- Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal
- Published
- 2012-06-01
- Volume
- 18
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 598-606
- ISSN
- 1020-3397 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2141812481
- Cited by
- 47
- References
- 21
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 3
- FWCI
- 1.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Saint Joseph University
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Migration, Identity, and Health
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Literacy and Information Accessibility
- Keywords
- health-seeking behavior, university students, barriers to care, informal care, mental health, substance use, sexual health, confidentiality
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Analysis of Variance, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Health Services Accessibility, Humans, Lebanon, Male, Patient Acceptance of Health Care, Surveys and Questionnaires, Students, Chi-Square Distribution, Young Adult
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