Factors that affect the uptake of maternal health insurance: a study of IMC Clinic Mbale Branch in Mbale District

Abstract

In Uganda, maternal and child health accounts for a large proportion of the expenditures made towards healthcare .it is estimated that one in every five Ugandan has some form of MHI. Availability of health insurance may protect families from catastrophic costs. The study intended to determine the factors that affect the uptake of maternal health insurance amongst pregnant women. The study adopted secondary data from IMC Mbale branch and it employed a quantitative method. Data was imported to Microsoft excel 2007.STATA software was used for univariate analysis for frequency analysis and bivariate analysis for chi square analysis. SPSS statistical software for running a binary logistic regression. A total of 64 women were selected in the study 42.19% of women paid for delivery services by cash and 57.81% paid by insurance. It was observed that a woman having a professional job is most likely to take up maternal health insurance. Findings from data analysis; show that profession of a woman as a variable has a p-value of 0.008 which is lower than 0.005 thus making it the only significant variable. It has odd ratio of 0.114 meaning that a woman who is doing a professional job is 0.114 times likely to have taken up maternal health insurance. Results from the study showed that even though a large proportion paid by insurance (57.81%) , only are few people know about it and can afford it and most of them are from urban(61.22%) and the rest of the percentage are not aware and do not utilize the maternal health insurance services. Despite the fact that most women (62.5%) that had taken up MHI were employed, most of them were professionals (75.76%) and had insurance cover. Therefore; from this study; there is need for the right measures to be taken to increase sensitization amongst the employed and the professionals to take up MHI