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Abstract

The leading causes of morbidity and mortality in Ghana include diseases such as malaria, lower respiratory tract infections, stroke, cardiovascular diseases, and diarrhoea diseases. Making quality and affordable healthcare accessible to people ensures that people are protected from healthcare-related harm. However, many will still opt for faith healing despite the availability of proper medical attention. This study's primary objective is to examine the Relationship between Religion and Health-Seeking Belief Outcomes in the Sunyani Municipality. The study's goals were met by using a cross-sectional research approach. The study also employed a mixed-method approach, which involved the use of both qualitative and quantitative data-gathering techniques. The present study viewed religion and spirituality as a multidimensional component and quantified it using a novel measure of religion and spirituality for research on health outcomes. A Mann-Whitney U test was used to determine if there was a difference in the health-seeking behaviour between men and women study participants. The mean ranks for men and women were 45.23 and 52.39 respectively. The test results revealed that there was no statistically significant difference in the health-seeking behaviour of the older adult participants depending upon their gender, i.e. men and women (U=931.5, n1=66, n2=33, p=0.24). The findings of the study suggest that the inclusion of religious faith did have a significant impact on the lifestyle choices of those who practised them. It was discovered throughout the interviews that a person's religious affiliation affected many other parts of their lives, not only their health decisions. Diet, sanitation, cleanliness, modesty, clothing and grooming, family planning, blood transfusion, organ transplantation, pregnancy, care of the dying, burial, post-mortems, and festivities/celebrations were among these consequences, but they weren't restricted.

Keywords

Religion faith healing health-seeking belief Sunyani Municipality Ghana

Article Details

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite
Adomah, G. (2023). Relationship between Religion and Health-Seeking Belief Outcomes in the Sunyani Municipality. Journal of Engineering Applied Science and Humanities, 8(1), 85–89. https://doi.org/10.53075/Ijmsirq/6577647546
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