European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

Background: An estimated 3.3% of Indians are impoverished in India due to increasing health care needs and high out-of-pocket expenditure. This makes the need for protective mechanisms against out of pocket expenditures apparent. In this area, not many studies are available; hence this study was done with the aim to gain insight into the current healthcare expenditure and its protective mechanism to effectively reduce out of pocket and catastrophic health expenditure.
Methodology: A cross sectional study was done in the urban area of Chennai. Required sample size was 356 households used multisatage sampling method with 2 stages. A pretested semi-structured questionnaire was developed based on the 71st round of NSSO questionnaire and adopted accordingly. Descriptive statistics like frequencies, percentages median and range were used. Chi-square tests and Mann- Whitney u test were used to ascertain the relationship.
Results: There were a total of 1663 individuals inhabiting the 356 households surveyed. Median OP and IP expenditure was INR 675 and INR 16500 for monthly and 6 months respectively.It was found that 53.6 % of households (n =191) experienced out of pocket expenditure. 62 households (17.4%) experienced catastrophic health expenditures where spending on health exceeded 10% of the household’s annual spending. Only, 149 (41.85%) households had some form of health insurance or social security schemes.
Conclusion: Even though the prevalence of protective mechanisms against out of pocket expenditure has risen, still some households need coverage to realize the goal of no out of pocket expenditure as in universal health coverage.