STM Journals Peer-reviewed research from Consortium e-Learning Network

Journal of Advancements in Library Sciences

Demographic Characteristics as Predictor of Information Seek Behaviour of Cancer Patients in Palliative Care in Northern Nigeria

  1. Lateefat N.G. Imam
  2. Sheriff Sangari Jen
  3. Abdulsalam A.
  4. Ibrahm M.M. Furfuri
  5. Taiwo A. Azeez

Abstract

This study assessed information seeks behavior of cancer patients in palliative care in Northern Nigeria. The study was guided with two hypotheses. Survey research design was used for this study. The population for this study comprised all patients in palliative care attending Usman Danfudio Teaching Hospital, Sokoto; Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria; and National Hospital, Abuja; the three hospitals were purposively selected because they are the only University Teaching Hospitals that offer radiotherapy in Northern Nigeria and a total of five hundred and eighty-four (584) (University Teaching Hospital) were cancer patients. Availability sampling procedure was used for the study. Split half reliability method was employed to test the reliability of the instrument and the reliability index of 0.83 was obtained. Descriptive statistics of mean, standard deviation, frequency counts and percentage were used to analyze the data collected. Multiple regressions were used to test hypotheses at 0.05 alpha level of significance. The results indicated that some of the variables such as marital status and level of education were statistically significant while the remaining two such as the number of independent members in age and sex, were statistically insignificant and were not determinants; and a coefficient of determination which is the adjusted R2 value of 0.426 implies that the variables included in the model explain 42.6% variation on the information seeking behavior of cancer patients in palliative care in Northern Nigeria. It was then recommended that health care professionals and other health related researchers must come out with the most effective means or strategies of providing information needed by the patients before and after treatment, especially the age groups and sex.

Keywords

Support