Abstract

HOUSEHOLD OUT OF POCKET MEDICAL AND DENTAL EXPENSES AMONG RESIDENTS OF PATNA, BIHAR; A CROSSECTIONAL QUESTIONNAIRE STUDY.

Dr. Supriya Singh, Dr. Rohit Singh, Dr. Md Asad Iqbalr, Dr. Abhishek Kumar, Dr. Avanindra Kumar and Dr. Jazib Nazeer*

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Availability and accessibility of health care is important for overall health status of any community. Out-of-pocket payments are the principal source of health care finance in most Asian countries and India is no exception. Both physical and financial accessibility is equally important. Hence the present study was conducted to assess the proportion of monthly family income spent on medical and dental expenses. Materials and Method: A door to door survey was conducted in sabzibaugh ward, Patna using dual stage random sampling. A 10 item open ended questionnaire was used, which was filled by the investigator by interviewing the head of the family. Data was entered into Microsoft excel and analyzed using SPSS version 19. Results: A total of 202 families were included in the study. The major amount of the monthly family income was spent on medical treatment as compared to dental treatment. The average out of pocket expenditure on dental and medical treatment was 2135.94±656.8 INR and 8771.28±1056.43 INR (p value=0. 038) respectively. Medical insurance formed a substantial proportion of the monthly family expenditure as compared to dental insurance (p value=0. 023). The total medical expenses was 13.21% and dental expenses was 4.84% of family income. Conclusion: The present study revealed that the family expenditure on medical and dental treatments differs significantly among the peri-urban population of Patna. The average three monthly expenditure on the dental treatment was found to be rather depressing when compared to that on medical discourse. There was also a pronounced difference in the dental and medical insurance utilization among the study population.

Keywords: Out-of Pocket, Health care, dental care, health expenditures, health insurance.