Findings from P. Deng and Co-Authors Provides New Data about Health Insurance (Access to medicines for acute illness and antibiotic use in residents:…

Managed Care Weekly Digest

Findings from P. Deng and Co-Authors Provides New Data about Health Insurance (Access to medicines for acute illness and antibiotic use in residents: A medicines household survey in Sichuan Province, western China)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Managed Care Weekly Digest -- Investigators publish new report on Health Insurance. According to news reporting out of Chengdu, People's Republic of China, by NewsRx editors, research stated, "To investigate medicine accessibility and antibiotic use in households in western China using World Health Organization (WHO) methodology as well as to identify the influencing factor of care-seeking outside the home and primary determinant factors that influence the use of antibiotics in Chinese residents. A cross-sectional household survey was conducted from March to July 2015, and 1200 households from six cities in Sichuan China were selected for a questionnaire survey using stratified multistage random cluster sampling."

Financial support for this research came from National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (see also Health Insurance).

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research, "We used logistic regression models to identify the determinants of care-seeking outside the home and subsequent antibiotic use among the surveyed residents. Overall, 1103 valid questionnaires were collected, and 458 households reported that they had had experienced at least one acute illness in the previous 2 weeks. Of these households, 97.2% of individuals with acute conditions sought care outside their homes and 40.1% of individuals who took medicine received antibiotics. Only 15.9% of the individuals with acute conditions reported that the medical insurance reimbursement covered at least one medicine. According to the multivariate analyses, women were less likely to seek care outside the home compared to men. Among those who sought outside care, fever and upper respiratory symptoms increased the odds of taking antibiotics, and visiting a private hospital also increased antibiotic use. Low-income households were less likely to receive antibiotics. Symptoms were strong determinants of antibiotic use when patients sought outside care. The accessibility of medicine for acute illness among households in western China was favorable; however, medical insurance reimbursement must be improved. The nature of the symptoms and patterns of care-seeking had the greatest influence on the decision to take antibiotics among residents with acute conditions."

According to the news editors, the research concluded: "The percentage of antibiotic use in patients with acute illness has declined, but the indications for using antibiotics must be standardized."

For more information on this research see: Access to medicines for acute illness and antibiotic use in residents: A medicines household survey in Sichuan Province, western China. Plos One, 2018;13(8):e0201349. (Public Library of Science - www.plos.org; Plos One - www.plosone.org)

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting P. Deng, West China School of Pharmacy Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, People's Republic of China. Additional authors for this research include J. Yu, N. Zhou and M. Hu.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201349. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

Keywords for this news article include: Chengdu, Health Insurance, Medical Insurance, Health and Medicine, People's Republic of China.