Assessment of factors that affect the access to health services in the past twelve months case study: persons aged 30 years and above in Ishaka-Bushenyi municipality
Abstract
Facilitating access is concerned with helping people to command appropriate health care resources in order to preserve or improve health. If services are available and there is an adequate supply of health services, then the opportunity to obtain health care exists and a population may have access to health services (Gulliford, 2002). This study specifically assessed factors affecting the access to health services by people aged 30 years and above in Ishaka-Bushenyi Municipality. The study interviewed a total number of 96 adults aged 30 years and above .A well-designed and pretested questionnaire was used to collect data from respondents and it was analyzed using STATA Version 15.
Access to health services was dependent on age, sex, monthly income, level of education, occupation and the kind of health facility.
Results showed that 54.2% were male; 59.1% had at least some secondary school education and 29% had no formal education. Majority of the respondents (80.2%) were employed; 52.1% were self-employed and 28.1% were salaried.
Of the 96, 91 (94.8%) reported to have gotten sick at least once in the last 12 months. Of those that fell sick, 62.5% sought health care. About eighty four percent (83.6%) reported the health received as of good quality. Care was almost equally accessed from the private and public facilities.
The results showed that access to health services was significantly dependent on monthly income where low income earners were significantly associated with decreased odds ratio (0.205) to access health services compared to high income earners, thus low income earners were less likely to access health services compared to high income earners.