scholarly journals Depressive symptoms, chronic medical illness, and health care utilization: findings from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing (KLoSA)

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (8) ◽  
pp. 1285-1293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongsoo Kim ◽  
Sang-Min Park ◽  
Soong-Nang Jang ◽  
Soonman Kwon

ABSTRACTBackground: This population-based study examined the relative and combined relationships of chronic medical illness (CMI) and depressive symptoms with health care utilization among older adults in South Korea.Methods: A nationally representative sample of 3224 older adults participating in the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing (KLoSA) were categorized into four groups based on clinical characteristics: CMI only; depressive symptoms only; CMI and depressive symptoms; and neither CMI nor depressive symptoms. We estimated the use of various health care services by the groups while adjusting for clinical and sociodemographic characteristics.Results: Depressive symptoms, as measured by the short-form Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale (CES-D10), were prevalent, often occurring together with CMI in community-dwelling older adults in South Korea. Having depressive symptoms was positively associated with the use of inpatient services, outpatient physician services, and public health centers. The odds of using health care services were larger among older people with both depressive symptoms and CMI than depressive symptoms only.Conclusions: Self-reported depressive symptoms and self-reported CMI are prevalent among older adults in South Korea, often occurring together and possibly increasing health care utilization. These findings imply a need for chronic disease management targeting older people with complex mental and medical conditions and evaluation of its effects on health outcomes and service use.

2016 ◽  
Vol 36 (12) ◽  
pp. 1415-1432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vibha Bhargava ◽  
Jung Sun Lee

This study examined the relationship between food insecurity and health care utilization (physician, inpatient, emergency room, and home health visits) among older adults. Survey data collected from Georgia Advanced Performance Outcomes Measures Project 6 linked to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (GA Advanced POMP6-CMS) data 2008 ( N = 957) were analyzed. Nearly one half of the sample (48.3%) was food insecure. Food insecure individuals were significantly less likely than food secure individuals to have any physician (69.7% vs. 80.2%) and home health visits (24.9% vs. 32.3%) during 2008. However, there were no significant differences in levels of health care utilization by food secure and food insecure older adults. Food secure and food insecure older adults utilized comparable levels of health care services. Public assistance programs such as Medicare and meal services targeted toward older adults may enable economically constrained, food insecure older adults to access needed health care services.


Author(s):  
Ernawaty ◽  
Kendra Wardhani K ◽  
Stefanus Supriyanto ◽  
Nuzulul Kusuma Putri ◽  
Yeni Rahmah Husniyawati

Background: Health care utilization is one of the key indicators in measuring performance of health care services. Strong brand equity suggests positive correlation with great attraction for consumers to use a product. Design and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted to identify the effects of brand equity to health care utilization. 381 students were selected by simple random sampling. Multiple logistic regression tests were used to analyze the influence between variables. Results: Findings showed that there was an influence between brand equity and health care utilization (P=0.001). In the three attributes, brand equity was known to have an influence to the utilization of health care. The highest influence of the three attributes was brand association (Exp (B) = 2.501). Conclusions: It can be concluded that brand equity affects patient visits to AHCC showing that the brand equity significantly influence patient visits. Promotion to create familiarity and good impression was required to enhance brand equity and increase health care utilization.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (7) ◽  
pp. 1011-1019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Se Jin Park ◽  
Hyesue Jang ◽  
Yeeun Lee ◽  
Chul Eung Kim ◽  
Subin Park

Objective: To compare health behaviors, physical health outcomes, and health care utilization between children with and without ADHD. Method: In this cross-sectional study, we obtained data for children with and without ADHD from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. To investigate the association between ADHD and health outcomes, we estimated the adjusted prevalence ratios (APRs) in these groups. Results: Among 10,838 children aged 7 to 18 years with and without ADHD, those with ADHD had significantly higher APRs for overall health problems, physical illness, and injuries than those without ADHD. Despite having health care needs, children with ADHD were less likely than those without ADHD to use health care services. However, there were no significant associations between most health behaviors and ADHD. Conclusion: Increased efforts are needed to provide quality health care services to address the medical conditions of children with ADHD and to enhance their health care utilization when needed.


2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tero S Kujanpää ◽  
Jari Jokelainen ◽  
Juha P Auvinen ◽  
Markku J Timonen

Objective Generalized anxiety disorder is associated with higher rate of physical comorbities, unexplained symptoms, and health care utilization. However, the role of somatic symptoms in determining health care utilization is unclear. The present study aims to assess the association of frequent attendance of health care services between generalized anxiety disorder symptoms and somatic symptoms. Method This study was conducted cross-sectionally using the material of the 46-year follow-up survey of the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966. Altogether, 5585 cohort members responded to the questionnaires concerning health care utilization, illness history, physical symptoms, and generalized anxiety disorder-7 screening tool. Odds ratios belonging to the highest decile in health care utilization were calculated for generalized anxiety disorder symptoms and all (n = 4) somatic symptoms of Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 controlled for confounding factors. Results Adjusted Odds ratios for being frequent attender of health care services were 2.29 (95% CI 1.58–3.31) for generalized anxiety disorder symptoms and 1.28 (95% CI 0.99–1.64), 1.94 (95% CI 1.46–2.58), 2.33 (95% CI 1.65–3.28), and 3.64 (95% CI 2.15–6.18) for 1, 2, 3, and 4 somatic symptoms, respectively. People with generalized anxiety disorder symptoms had on average a higher number of somatic symptoms (1.8) than other cohort members (0.9). Moreover, 1.6% of people without somatic symptoms tested positive for generalized anxiety disorder, meanwhile 22.6% of people with four somatic symptoms tested positive for generalized anxiety disorder. Conclusions Both generalized anxiety disorder symptoms and somatic symptoms are associated with a higher risk for being a health care frequent attender.


Author(s):  
B. Wafula ◽  
J. Arudo ◽  
M. Kipmerewo

Purpose. The main objective was to establish determinants of maternal health care utilization and specifically to assess the trends of maternal health care utilization and determine the predictors of maternal health care service utilization in the era of free maternity policy in Busia County. Methodology. It was a cross-sectional study design. The study was conducted between February and April 2019. The research targeted mothers within childbearing age of 15-49 years and a sample size of 634 mothers was used. Quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS version 22.0. Descriptive statistics was used to describe results on socio-demographic characteristics while inferential statistics employed bivariate and multivariate logistic regressions to investigate determinants of maternal health care utilization. Odds ratio was used to test the strength of association, and a p-value of ≤ 0.05 considered as statistically significant.  Results. In 2010, FANC increased by 5.6% from 2010 (pre-free maternity period) to 2017 (post-free maternity era). There was also an increase of 2.2% cases of health facility deliveries during pre-free maternity period (2010) and post-free maternity period (2017). Eleven predictors of maternal health care utilization were identified. Among them were respondent being a farmer (OR = 2.6; 95% CI: 1.4-4.8; p = 0.002), the status of the infrastructure of the nearest health facility maternity being good (OR = 3.2; 95% CI: 1.1-9.6; p = 0.03), fare for the public vehicle being USD 0.2 (OR = 3.4; 95% CI: 1.6-7.1; p = 0.001), all maternal health services being available in the nearest health facility (OR = 3.1; 95% CI: 1.8-5.4; p<0.0001), difficulty to attend MCH services due to non-suitability of working days (OR = 2.7; 95% CI: 1.5-4.7; p=0.0008), there being some services that clients pay for (OR = 3.3; 95% CI: 1.5-7.4; p=0.004), services being provided by nurses (midwives) (OR = 2.3; 95% CI: 1.0-4.9; p=0.04) , baby checkup being done within 24 hours by nurses (OR = 18.8; 95% CI: 8.0-44.0; p<0.0001. In conclusion, free maternity care program has led to increased utilization of facility ANC visits and deliveries in the study area. Barriers related to utilization of maternal health care services included unreliable transport especially at night, limited infrastructure and low socio-economic status of the women in the study area. National and county governments need to put in place strategies which will help them to jointly assess, map and plan investments to improve utilization of maternal health care services through prioritizing investments in human resource, infrastructure and commodities based on the anticipated demand for such services. A unique contribution to theory, practice, and policy: The study findings identified key factors that are unique to the mothers in Busia County on predisposing factors, enabling factors and the need characteristics that determine utilization of maternal health care in the era of Free Maternity services in the study area. These results contribute to both maternal health care utilization and policy change that could directly meet the social setting, geographical location and cultural needs of the people of Busia County.


2020 ◽  
pp. 6-6
Author(s):  
Dilek Başar ◽  
Selcen Öztürk ◽  
İsmail Cakmak

The aim of this study is to investigate the equity phenomenon, which can be defined as an equal treatment for equal need irrespective of socio-economic status, in the utilization of health care services in Turkey (for out-patient and in-patient treatment services, separately) in the context of the behavioral model. We have used the ?Health Surveys? obtained from the Turkish Statistical Institute for 2010, 2012 and 2014. The equity phenomenon and the determinants of the health care utilization are investigated by using the probit model. The findings indicate that the need variable has the largest marginal effect in magnitude for all types of health care. This implies that the health system structure in Turkey is based on need and, therefore, equity exists in the utilization of health care services. We have also found that health insurance has the second largest marginal effect after the need variable. This means that policy makers should focus on enabling factors, especially the coverage of health insurance and the level of income to increase health care utilization of the disadvantaged segments of the population.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 185
Author(s):  
Leli Rachmawati ◽  
Isma Faridatus Sholihah

Background: National Health Insurance is the government's effort to increase public access to health care services. As the implementer of the National Health Insurance, the Outpatient Unit of Haji General Hospital, Surabaya has undergone the decrease of contribution beneficiaries’ visits from 2010-2013. This condition indicates a decrease in health care utilization by the low-income community.Aim: This study aims to identify the correlation between health care demands and health care utilization by the contribution beneficiary patients.Method: The study was an observational analytic using a cross-sectional design. A systematic random sampling technique was used to determine the sample of the study. The respondents were 74 contribution beneficiary patients who possessed a district government free care scheme and had ever utilized the health care services at the Outpatient Unit of Haji General Hospital, Surabaya, and at least 13 years old. The data were collected through questionnaires and analyzed with Spearman and Chi-Square tests (α =0.05).Results: Health status, insurance needs, additional costs, gender, ethnicity, education, and income did not have a significant correlation with the health care service utilization by the contribution beneficiary patients at the Outpatient Unit of Haji General Hospital. It was identified that the older the people are, the higher the frequency of health care utilization is. Besides, service time was proven to be the determinants of health care utilization (p = 0.006).Conclusion: The most influential factors in utilizing the health care services by contribution beneficiary patients are service time and age. Based on those factors, the Haji General Hospital requires to improve its services and service timeliness for the elderly contribution beneficiary patients.Keywords: demand, contribution beneficiary patients, utilization.


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