Relation of poverty with treatment-seeking behavior and antibiotic misuse among UTI patients in Pakistan

ObjectiveThe current study aimed to assess the relation between multi-dimension poverty, treatment-seeking behavior, and antibiotic misuse among urinary tract infection (UTI) patients.MethodA cross-sectional approach was utilized to recruit patients who had a history of UTI in the previous month from two provinces of Pakistan. The treatment-seeking behavior and antibiotic misuse data were collected on a self-developed questionnaire, whereas the poverty data were collected on a modified multi-dimension poverty index (MPI). Descriptive statistics were applied to summarize the data. The logistic regression analysis was carried out to assess the association of multi-dimension poverty with patient treatment-seeking behavior and antibiotic misuse.ResultsA total of 461 participants who had UTI symptoms in the previous month were recruited. Most of the participants in the severely deprived stage treated the UTI (p