Abstract:

Measure of utilization play a critical role in the planning of healthcare delivery capacity to meet the needs of the rural population. In developing countries, the major problem of public sectors is the underutilization of health care services. Factors such as age, gender, education, poverty, traditional medicine use and distance from health care services have found to contribute to the service use. Most rural population acknowledge the roles of spiritual belief in utilizing the medical services; however, this particular area has been left largely unexplored. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to fill the gap of the limited information available about the individual determinant of healthcare utilization among the rural population. The main objective of this study is to examine the relationship between individual determinants and health care utilization among the rural population and to identify the role of spiritual belief as a moderator in the relationship between individual determinants and health care utilization among the rural population. The population of this study will composed of rural communities of Malaysia from four regions namely northern region, southern region, central region and east coast region.