Healthcare Demand Procrastination Scale: Development and Validation Study

Authors : Sait Söyler, Seda Uyar, Ramazan Kiraç, Göksel Yilmaz, Fatma Çiftçi Kiraç

Pages : 617-626

Doi:10.30621/jbachs.1068530

View : 27 | Download : 8

Publication Date : 2022-05-31

Article Type : Research

Abstract :Purpose: Maintaining a healthy life is the right of every individual. The important matter at this point is accepting early intervention without delaying healthcare demand and taking action for this intervention. Through this study, it was aimed to develop a measurement tool in order to determine the procrastination behavior for health services demand among the individuals at the age of 18 and over. Methods: In the study, a questionnaire form which consists of the demographic variables (gender, age, marital status, learning status, status of chronic diseases, number of applications to the physician, status of access to physician, and health assurance) and informed consent was employed. Healthcare Demand Procrastination Scale (HDPS) was employed as well as the Health Seeking Behavior Scale (HSBS) for the validity of criteria. The findings obtained from the study were evaluated through the programs of SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) and AMOS. Results: No significant difference was found between the scores obtained through Kendall’s test which was conducted in order to test the content validity of the scale. In order to examine the structure validation of the scale, explanatory and confirmatory factor analysis were performed and as a result of the analysis, values of goodness of fit were found normal and acceptable. Finally, HSBS was employed to ensure the criteria validity of the scale. A positive relationship was found between procrastination behavior of healthcare demand and traditional behavior of health seeking while there was a negative relationship with professional health seeking behavior. In the Pearson correlation coefficient analysis which shows the compatibility of the average test-retest scores of the draft scale, a statistically significant positive relationship was observed between two measurements. Conclusions: As a result of the research, a scale which measures the healthcare demand procrastination behavior in Turkey was obtained. In addition, the behavior of individuals with a certain disease about health procrastination behavior for health services can also be examined through the developed scale.
Keywords : Health, health procrastination behavior, health seeking behaviors, scale development