An Assessment of Major Factors Contributing towards Choosing Alternate Healers (Hakeem, Dispenser, Spiritual Healer) over Registered Medical Practitioner (RMP)

Abstract

Background: Malpractice is characterized as "careless, unsuitable, or illegal activity while performing a professional task" by Oxford Learner's Dictionaries (1). Prevalence of alternate healers is a problem of nearly all less economically underdeveloped countries. Pakistan is also one of the victims of malpractice. Factors that contribute to malpractice are proximity, affordable fee, availability, family pressure, and the strong opinion of the community. The objective of the study was to analyze why people choose alternate healers and to evaluate the misconception and myths regarding registered medical practitioners.

Methods: A Descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample size of 319 with participants from Gujranwala’s rural and urban areas in 2021. Both the male and female population of Gujranwala was included.  Data was entered and analyzed   in SPSS version 21.

Results: The socio-economic and demographic variables considerably effect the choice of health care provider. More people in rural areas visit alternate healers as compared to urban areas. Lack of information and misconceptions about physicians were also the factors effecting health seeking behavior of people.

Conclusion: There is a potential to improve the health-seeking behavior and utilization of health facilities by addressing the demand side (community) factors i.e., socio-economic factors, cultural beliefs, by shutting down all unlicensed practitioners and educating the community to avoid visiting them to reduce the probability of exposure to unsafe healthcare practices.