Health behaviours of Australian men and the likelihood of attending a dedicated men's health service
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Date
2018
Authors
Vincent, A.D.
Drioli-Phillips, P.G.
Le, J.
Cusack, L.
Schultz, T.J.
McGee, M.A.
Turnbull, D.A.
Wittert, G.A.
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Journal article
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BMC Public Health, 2018; 18(1):1078-1-1078-10
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Andrew D. Vincent, Phoebe G. Drioli-Phillips, Jana Le, Lynette Cusack, Timothy J. Schultz, Margaret A. McGee, Deborah A. Turnbull, and Gary A. Wittert
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Abstract
Background: Redesigning primary health services may enhance timely and effective uptake by men. The primary aim of this study was to assess the likelihood of Australian men attending a dedicated men's health service (DMHS). The further aims were to better understand the reasons for their preferences and determine how health behaviours influence likelihood. Methods: A survey on health service use and preferences, health help-seeking behaviours, and the likelihood of attending a DMHS was administered by telephone to 1506 randomly selected men (median age 56 years, range 19-95). Likelihood of attending a DMHS was rated using a single item Likert scale where 0 was not at all likely and 10 highly likely. Respondents were classified by age (< or > = 65 years) and health status. Principal component analyses were used to define health behaviours, specifically help-seeking and delay/avoidance regarding visiting a doctor. Multivariable linear and logistic regression analyses were used to examine predictors of likelihood of attending a DMHS. Results: The mean likelihood of attending a DMHS was 5.8 (SD 3.3, median 6, moderate likelihood) and 21%, 26% and 23% of men rated likelihood as moderate, high and very high respectively. Being happy with their existing doctor was the most common reason (52%) for being less likely to attend a DMHS. In unadjusted analyses, younger men reported being more likely to attend a DMHS (p < 0.001) with older-sick men reporting being least likely (p < 0.001). Younger men were more likely than older men to score higher on delay/avoidance and were more likely to self-monitor. In the full model, men with current health concerns (p ≤ 0.01), who scored higher on delay/avoidance (p ≤ 0.0006), who were more likely to be information-seekers (p < 0.0001) and/or were motivated to change their health (p ≤ 0.0001) reported a higher likelihood of attending a DMHS irrespective of age and health status. Conclusions: Seventy percent of men reported a moderate or higher likelihood of attending a DMHS. As young healthy men are more likely than older men to display health behaviours that are associated with a higher likelihood of attending a DHMS, such as delay/avoidance, marketing a DMHS to such men may be of value.
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© The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.