Abstract

Background: Health care seeking behaviour is influenced by the availability and accessibility of health services.,Dependent on these determinants and their interactions, health care seeking behaviour has been considered a complex,outcome of many factors operating at individual, family, and community levels.,
Objective: To find pattern of the health care practices about eye disease.,Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in the rural field practices area of a tertiary care hospital. The,purposive sampling was used to select the study subjects. A total of 160 subjects of age >18 years were studied from,5 villages. From the center of the community, each subsequent household was selected by counting the next 2 or 3,houses in a random direction until the number needed for that community was obtained. Again, the number of households,counted and assigned to each community was based on their population size.,Result: The choice of treatment for eye diseases was private (49.4%) followed by over the counter (32.5%) and government,(18.1%). Out of those who had government choice, 51.7% had choice of PHC and 34.5% had CHC. The private,hospitals (51%) were the main place of treatment for cataract followed by district hospital (14.3%). The main source of,information about eye care services was relatives and friends (36.9%) followed by television (30.6%).,Conclusion: There was less utilization of government health facilities in the care seeking of eye diseases among the rural,population. Hence, there is a need to strengthen the community to utilize the government health facility through educating,the community to have better treatment.