Awareness and Utilization of Health Services as Perceived by BSU Undergraduate Students

Abstract

The study was conducted to evaluate the extent of awareness and utilization of undergraduate students in Benguet State University (BSU) to the different medical and dental services being offered at the campus. Variable such as age, gender, ethnic affiliation, and the college where they belong were used to determine whether they have significant influences on the level of awareness and utilization of the respondents on the medical and dental services being provided.

The study was conducted at Benguet State University, La Trinidad, Benguet from December 2011 to January 2012. The respondents of the study totaled three hundred seventy-eight (378) students from first to fourth year levels of the eight different colleges. There were 47-49 respondents for every college. The main tool for gathering the data was a structured questionnaire checklist which was administered personally by the researchers.

Weighed mean was used to determine the level of awareness and utilization of the respondents. The t-test was used to test the significant differences between two groups while the F-test was used to test the significant differences of three or more groups.

The findings of the study showed that the respondents are moderately aware of the medical and dental services being offered and they sometimes utilize the medical services while they never utilize the dental services. Age significantly affects the level of awareness of both health services and the level of utilization for the medical services but it is not significant for the utilization of dental services. On the contrary gender, does not significantly affect the level of utilization of the medical services but it affects the level of utilization on dental services.

Meanwhile ethnic affiliation does not affect the level of awareness and utilization of both medical and dental services but respondent’s college affects both the awareness and utilization of the dental and medical services.

Furthermore, there is a significant relationship between the level of awareness and the level of utilization of health services among BSU undergraduate students.

The level of awareness and utilization regarding health services by the students are low. Many students are not aware of the services offered and therefore, services are not utilized, while some have been seldom used. Anent with these, medical and dental awareness campaign should be enhanced especially among freshmen students to improve the utilization of the medical and dental services offered by the university. Services offered by the medical and dental clinic must be enumerated properly in order for the students gain more knowledge allowing them to increase their level of awareness and utilization on the health services offered. Furthermore, orientations per school year should be made compulsory to keep every student aware of and updated of any change or improvement done on the health services. Finally, future study evaluating the level of satisfaction of the BSU undergraduate students on the health services offered in the university is recommended.