Assessment of the factors affecting the uptake of health insurance by mothers in Uganda: a case study of Wandegeya
Abstract
The objective of this study was to assess the factors affecting the uptake of health insurance by
mothers in Uganda. Therefore, it aims to find out whether age, religion, marital status, number
of children, place of residence, education level, employment status, income level, parity, place
of delivery in the last pregnancy, knowledge and attitude towards health insurance have a
significant relationship with uptake of health insurance by mothers. It used primary data that
was collected using questionnaires that were administered face to face on a sample of 109
respondents from Wandegeya town. The analysis was done using frequency distribution,
Pearson chi-square and logistic regression.
In the results, less than a half of the respondents had health insurance (42.72%). (85.44%) of
the respondents were from urban places of residence. About 48.61% of the respondents had
their income level as above 1,000,000. In the bi-variate stage of analysis, it was found out that
the significant factors that affected the uptake of health insurance by mothers were; age, income
level, place of delivery, education level and place of residence (p <0.1).
In the multivariate analysis, mothers who reported that their income level was above 1,000,000
were eleven times more likely to have health insurance than those who reported that their
income level were below 1,000,000 (OR = 11.04). Mothers who reported that their place of
residence was urban were six times more likely to have health insurance than those who
reported their places of residence as rural (OR = 6.80). Mothers who reported their place of
delivery in the last pregnancy as a private facility were five times more likely to have health
insurance than those who reported their place of delivery in the last pregnancy as a government
facility or home (OR = 5.86).
The findings indicate the need to; (i) Educate the masses about the importance of health
insurance. (ii) Extend insurance services to the rural areas of the country.