Barriers to Utilization of Health Services: Perception of Postsecondary School Malaysian Urban Youth

Previous research has indicated that adolescents and young people trying to get access to accessible, affordable and acceptable health services which may face many barriers such as psychosocial barriers; for instance, they prefer to provide contraceptive products from drugstores located in other neighborhoods rather than ones located nearby. In addition, different researchers have found various barriers of accessibility of young people to health services. For example, Scheppers and colleagues classified potential barriers into three levels including patient, provider and system levels. Demographic and structural variables, health beliefs and attitudes, personal enabling resources, community enabling resources, perceived illness and personal health practices could be classified as patient level items while provider level may consist of provider characteristics such as provider’s skills and attitudes. System characteristics like the organization of the health care system could also be classified as barriers of system level. Moreover, while provider’s attitude, practices and behaviors could classified as health care provider barriers, they could also act as related barriers to the providers’ ability to take care of adolescents and young people. Various factors such as inadequate time, flexibility, skills, and confidence in working 1Department of Community Health, Universiti Kebangsaan, Malaysia Medical Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2Social Health Determinants Research Center, Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekord, Iran