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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Health Economics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1583075
This article is part of the Research Topic The Intersection of Psychology, Healthy Behaviors, and its Outcomes View all 80 articles
Influencing factors of patients' behavior of healthcare seeking: A meta-analysis in China
Provisionally accepted- 1 School of Business, Henan University, Kaifeng, China
- 2 School of Business Administration, Anhui University of Finance and Economics, Bengbu, Anhui Province, China
Objectives: Understanding patient's healthcare seeking behavior (BHS) and identifying the determinants influencing BHS can optimize the allocation of medical resources and enhance the efficacy of healthcare systems. The purpose of this study is to identify the influencing factors of patients' BHS and to assess the extent and variation in their impact on BHS.Methods: Drawing upon the Anderson Behavioral Model of Health Service Utilization, we summarized the factors influencing patients' BHS into three categories, and examined empirical journal articles published from 2010 to 2023 using meta-analysis. In addition, the Bayesian analysis of variance was introduced to explore the influence of moderators.Results: A total of 39 empirical journal articles were finally identified for meta-analysis. Ten out of the thirteen factors have a significant and positive influence on BHS, with the exception of trust in medical institutions (z=0.176, p=0.077), health record (z=1.942, p=0.052), and medical expenses (z=0.1846, p=0.065). The results of moderating effect analysis indicate that there is a significant difference in the impact of age (p<0.001), education level (p<0.05), family income (p<0.001), medical insurance (p<0.001), illness severity (p<0.01), and healthcare service reputation (p<0.001) on BHS.Conclusions: There is a positive and significant influence of the antecedent variables (self-rated health, distance to medical facilities, illness severity, age, family income, education level, marital status, medical insurance, awareness of hierarchical healthcare, health record, and healthcare service reputation) on BHS. Furthermore, the influences of family income, medical insurance, and illness severity on BHS in developed areas are stronger than that in underdeveloped areas, while the influences of age, education level, and healthcare service reputation on BHS in underdeveloped areas are stronger than that in developed areas.
Keywords: Behavior of healthcare seeking, Meta-analysis, Influencing factors, hierarchical medical system, Moderating effect analysis
Received: 25 Feb 2025; Accepted: 07 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Song, Wu and Feng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Mingzhe Wu, School of Business, Henan University, Kaifeng, China
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