미충족 의료에 미치는 관련 요인 분석

Abstract

Objectives : This study was aimed to investigate the conditions of unmet needs for health care in Korea and its associated factors. Methods : 7,177 adults who aged 19 and over were analyzed, based upon the data of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted in 2008 (the second year of the 4th stage). Unmet needs were measured as the response to the question “Have you ever Experienced a situation where you could not visit a hospital or a clinic, though you wanted to?” Overall, 22.9% experienced unmet needs for health care among the respondents. Female respondents experienced higher unmet needs for health care. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine the main factors associated with unmet needs. The entire respondents of 19 years and older were classified into two subsets of out‐patients and in‐patients in order to analyze factors according to the use of health care services. Results : The gap of unmet needs among inpatients with different income levels was approximately two times higher than the gap among out-patients, which shows there is a limitation on the accessibility of health care according to financial cause. It was also verified by the fact that Medicaid recipients’ unmet needs for health care increased when using services related to hospitalization. Conclusion : The government is required to intervene appropriately in order to help people to get proper health care in a timely manner through investigating of factors of unmet needs for health care according to various subjects and by analyzing detailed causes depending on conditions.