Men’s Health Seeking Behaviour: Exploring Men’s Reluctance to Seek Help. A Case of Victoria Falls Industrial Site Community

The World Health Organization is so passionate about good health for all. People. Meanwhile, the emerging counselling discipline is a complimentary arm whose interest is to fully complement those efforts through helping humankind in issues that may affect their health and overall well-being. The researcher has discovered through studies and general knowledge that men tend to delay in seeking health help compared to women. Men appear to be reluctant in seeking professional assistance in problems pertaining to their health, marriages, work place, infertility, sexual dysfunction and other social life ills subsequently leading to depression, suicides, excessive uptake of alcohol, violence, mental psychosis and physical disabilities or premature death. This study is hinged on the three objectives which are (1), to investigate why most men in Victoria Falls are reluctant to seek early health help, (2), to highlight and explore the effects of failure by men to seek help in matters relating to their health and lastly (3) to state and suggest possible solutions which can encourage men to seek health help promptly. Studies have shown that men are socially constructed to be strong from a tender age and they grow into adulthood believing that they are strong both physical and emotional hence they are supposed to withstand any situation affecting them. The cognitive behavioral theoretical approach was used as cognitions influence behavior. Societal stigmatization affects men’s heathy seeking behaviors. Most personnel manning the health institutions are females and this discouraged most men from visiting the centers. Some men claim that time to visit health institutions is not available thus compromising their heath. The descriptive research design was used in orderto achieve the intended research objectives. A case study of Victoria Falls industrial site was carried out in data collection. The population of interest was 500 males of which a purposive sampling technique through data saturation process. Mainly interviews were used for data collection. The study findings concurred with the suggestions rom the literature review section. The major reason from the findings is that societal expectations of the ‘macho’ effect affects most men through gender socialization. Most men’s health deteriorates as they delay visiting heath centers. A lot of highly skilled human resources is being lost, thus affecting industrial production. Recommendations put forward include a change in societal gender socialization of men, balancing the human personnel manning receptions at health institutions and employers deliberately crafting policies that compel men to visit health institutions regularly for checkups. Above all, educative counselling of men is a must as this tends to dissolve the myth that men don’t cry as well as men must not behaving like women who visit health centers for minor.