Research Results from University of Gondar Update Understanding of Public Health (Acceptance of the proposed social health insurance among government-owned company employees in Northwest Ethiopia: implications for starting social health …)

2020 NOV 02 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- New research on Health and Medicine - Public Health is the subject of a report. According to news originating from Gondar, Ethiopia, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Ethiopia is currently planning to introduce Social Health Insurance (SHI) that will lead to universal health coverage and assist a country to achieve its health system’s objectives and to prevent the catastrophic health expenditure. But there is no evidence until now about the level of acceptance of the proposed SHI among government-owned companies’ employees.”

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the University of Gondar, “Therefore, this study was intended to assess the acceptance of SHI and associated factors among government-owned companies’ employees in northwest Ethiopia. An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted from February 1 to April 30, 2019. A randomly selected 541 government-owned companies’ employees were participated in the study. A pretested self-administered structured questionnaire was used that consisted sociodemographic and economic, health status-related factors, attitude (measured by 12 items), organizational related factors and knowledge about SHI (measured by 11 items). Finally, binary logistic regression analysis was performed and in the multivariable logistic regression analysis, a significant level at a -value of <0.05 and Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) were used to identify factors statistically associated with SHI acceptance. Overall, 32% (95% CI: 27.7-36.2) of the government-owned companies’ employees accepted the proposed Ethiopian SHI scheme. Self-perceived health status (AOR: 8.55, 95% CI: 2.69-27.13), heard about SHI (AOR: 1.69, 95% CI: 1.12-2.54), coverage of medical healthcare cost (AOR: 0.60, 95% CI: 0.39-0.92), work experience (AOR: 0.49, 95% CI: 0.26-0.89) and quality of healthcare service at the facilities (AOR: 0.17, 95% CI: 0.04-0.71) were significantly associated with acceptance of SHI among government-owned companies’ employees. One-third of the study participants accepted the proposed Ethiopian SHI scheme. Self-perceived health status, quality of healthcare service at health facilities, coverage of the medical cost by their organization, heard about SHI and work experience were the factors that affect acceptance of the proposed SHI among the government-owned company employees.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Therefore, policymakers should devise a plan to promote the benefit packages of SHI for the formal sector employees to start the implementation.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Acceptance of the proposed social health insurance among government-owned company employees in Northwest Ethiopia: implications for starting social health insurance implementation. Archives of Public Health, 2020;78(1):104. (BioMed Central - http://www.biomedcentral.com/; Archives of Public Health - www.archpublichealth.com)

The news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained from Adane Kebede, Dept. of Health Systems and Policy, Institute of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar, P. O. Box: 196, Gondar, Ethiopia. Additional authors for this research include Abuneh Zemene, Asmamaw Atnafu and Tsegaye Gebremedhin.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13690-020-00488-x. 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.

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