Background: Female commercial sex workers are a group of people who are important
in the transmission of sexually transmitted infections (STI‘s). Studies have shown that,
both their commercial and non – commercial partners are sources of STI infections and
other diseases. Regular health seeking behaviour to health facility has been proven to
remarkably reduce the transmission of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and
therefore its important for the success of any STI control. A recent review of research on
stigma and discrimination against Female CSWs revealed that this leads to their
exclusion in the use of health facility. This study is therefore designed to assess the
health seeking behavior of sex workers in Adum in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.
Objectives: This study seeks to assess the health seeking behaviour among commercial
sex workers in Adum in the Ashanti Region; determine the association between socio
demographic characteristics of commercial sex workers (age, educational level, number
of children) and utilization of health care facility; identify sources of healthcare utilized
by commercial sex workers; examine commercial sex workers perception of various
healthcare options; identify health conditions often experienced and assess the health
action taken when sick.
Methods: A cross-sectional study on health seeking behavior among commercial sex
workers was conducted among 140 female sex workers in Adum-Kumasi in the Ashanti
Region of Ghana. Data were collected using questionnaire and responses analyzed using
IBM version of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Information
gathered included socio-demographic, sources of healthcare utilized, perception of
various healthcare options and health action taken when sick.
Results: Out of the 140 respondents, all had history of malaria infection. 47 percent
responded that they had syphilis. Eighty-one percent of the respondents indicated that
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they had Gonorrhoea. With regards to Candidiasis, 70.7 percent of the respondent
indicated that they had this disease. For Hepatitis and Diabetes, all respondents indicated
that they did not have these two ailments.
A binary logistic regression analysis was used to determine the relationship between
socio-demographics and utilization of orthodox health facility, the results showed that
only education had a significant relation with utilization of orthodox health facility and
this was highly reported by those who had tertiary education.
Conclusion: This study has identified some of the factors, which hinder the health
seeking behaviour of commercial sex workers. Most of the respondents self- medicate
because there are no strict rules in Ghana governing the purchase of antibiotics in the
drug stores, pharmacy shops and from drug peddlers. Treatment is sought as soon as
symptoms occur and this is a good behavior demonstrated by the sex workers in the
brothel.
Recommendations: District Health Management teams should develop interventions
that will enable commercial sex workers to understand the importance of using health
facility in cases of any disease condition. Since this study did not include qualitative
study, further studies should include mixed methods of health seeking behavior and
associated factors.