Abstract:
Healthcare service utilization has to do with the capacity to make use of existing healthcare services provided in a given area. As the most populous country in Africa, Nigeria is classified as lower middle income economy with poor health indices which left its residents with average life expectancy of 55.2 years in 2018. The poor health indicators could be associated with under-provision of healthcare services or under-utilization of healthcare services or both. This multiple association ignited interest of this study to investigate the demand for healthcare service utilization in Enugu metropolis of Enugu State, Nigeria. The study was guided by two objectives which include; to ascertain the factors that influence demand for healthcare services of households living in Enugu metropolis of Enugu state, Nigeria, and to ascertain the level of utilization of healthcare facilities amongst households living in Enugu metropolis of Enugu state, Nigeria. To achieve stated objectives, an ethical clearance was obtained from Enugu State Ministry of Health which permitted the researcher to collect information from 432 household in three Local Government Councils that made up Enugu metropolis, vis-à-vis Enugu East, North and South using structured questionnaire. The data was subjected to both descriptive statistics and multinomial logistic regression analysis using SATA 13 econometric software. The results show that marital status, level of education, transportation cost, service charge and waiting time played significant role in the choice of healthcare providers. The study however found that influence of employment status, income level, distance from health facilities, household size, quality of care, level of trust and health condition were not significant in determination of choice of healthcare providers. Furthermore, the result reveals that while 45.37%, 30.32% and 13.19% of households utilize private hospital, government hospital and traditional healthcare respectively, 11.11% households have no healthcare provider. The study therefore concludes that while some factors significantly influenced the choice of healthcare providers in Enugu metropolis, existing health facilities in the city are being under-utilized by households. Hence, it was recommended among others that government should educate households on the need to seek healthcare service from professionals so as to minimize the risk of self-medication. Similarly, more investment should be encourage in the health sector and ensure provision of quality healthcare delivery in the society.
