Factors Affecting Uptake of Health Insurance among University Students in Uganda: A Case Study of Makerere University

Abstract

This study seeks to examine the factors affecting uptake of health insurance among university students, particularly Makerere University students. This study adopted a cross sectional survey design, which employed a quantitative method. A self-administered questionnaire was used in obtaining the data on factors affecting uptake of health insurance and the data was processed using Microsoft Excel 2007 for frequency analysis and Stata 13.0 software for running the logistic regression. A total of 96 students participated in the study, with 51 males (53.13%) and 45 females (46.88%) taking part. According to the results obtained, 26 students (27.08%) had health insurance whereas 70 students (72.92%) did not have health insurance. From this study, it was observed that a student having a parent/guardian who has health insurance is also likely to have health insurance and similarly, a student who has a parent/guardian who does not have health insurance is also likely not to have health insurance. Findings from the data collected showed that parent/guardian having health insurance has a p-value of 0.000 which is lower than 0.05 thus making it the only significant variable. From the regression analysis, an odds ratio of 13.75 was obtained implying that a student who has a parent/guardian who has health insurance is 13.75 times more likely to have health insurance than a student who has a parent/guardian who does not have health insurance. Results from the study showed that even though a large proportion of the students (95.83%) thought that health insurance was necessary, only a small percentage of the students (27%) actually had health insurance. Despite the fact that majority of the students know companies offering health insurance, most of the students did not have health insurance. A large proportion of the students agree that health insurance should be made mandatory for university students during admission. From this study, there is need for the right measures to be taken to increase sensitization among university students and also parents who have adolescent children about health insurance and the associated benefits.