Healthcare seeking behaviour for common infectious syndromes among people in three administrative regions of Johannesburg, South Africa, 2015: a cross-sectional study

INTRODUCTION: Hospital-based surveillance programs only capture people presenting to facilities and may underestimate disease burden. We conducted a healthcare utilisation survey to characterise healthcare-seeking behaviour among people with common infectious syndromes in the catchment areas of two sentinel surveillance hospitals in Johannesburg, South Africa. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted within three regions of Johannesburg from August to November 2015. Premises were randomly selected from an enumerated list with data collected on household demographics and selected syndromes using a structured questionnaire. Fisher's exact or chi-square tests were used to determine association of characteristics among different regions. RESULTS: Of 3650 selected coordinates, 3358 were eligible dwellings and 2930 (87%) households with 9850 individuals participated. Four percent of participants (431/9850) reported influenza-like illness (ILI) in the last 30 days; equal numbers of participants (0.2%, 20/9850) reported pneumonia or tuberculosis symptoms in the last year and <1% reported diarrhoea or meningitis symptoms. Sixty eight percent (295/431) of participants who reported ILI, 75% (6/8) of children with diarrhoea and all participants who reported pneumonia (20), tuberculosis (20) or meningitis (6) sought healthcare. For all syndromes most sought care at registered healthcare providers. Of these only 10% (24/237) attended sentinel hospitals, predominantly those that lived closer to the hospitals. In contrast, of patients with meningitis, 50% (3/6) sought care at sentinel hospitals. CONCLUSION: Patterns of seeking healthcare differed by syndrome and distance from facilities. Surveillance programs are still relevant in collecting information on infectious syndromes and reflect a proportion of the hospital's catchment area.