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Exploring consumers’ attitudes towards informal patient payments using the combined method of cluster and multinomial regression analysis - the case of Hungary

BACKGROUND: Previous studies on informal patient payments have mostly focused on the magnitude and determinants of these payments while the attitudes of health care actors towards these payments are less well known. This study aims to reveal the attitudes of Hungarian health care consumers towards i...

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Autores principales: Baji, Petra, Pavlova, Milena, Gulácsi, László, Groot, Wim
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3606140/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23414488
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-13-62
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author Baji, Petra
Pavlova, Milena
Gulácsi, László
Groot, Wim
author_facet Baji, Petra
Pavlova, Milena
Gulácsi, László
Groot, Wim
author_sort Baji, Petra
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Previous studies on informal patient payments have mostly focused on the magnitude and determinants of these payments while the attitudes of health care actors towards these payments are less well known. This study aims to reveal the attitudes of Hungarian health care consumers towards informal payments to provide a better understanding of this phenomenon. METHODS: For the analysis, we use data from a survey carried out in 2010 in Hungary involving a representative sample of 1037 respondents. We use cluster analysis to identify the main attitude groups related to informal payments based on the respondents’ perception of and behavior related to informal payments. Multinomial logistic regression is applied to examine the differences between these groups in terms of socio-demographic characteristics, as well as past utilization and informal payments paid for health care services. RESULTS: We identified three main different attitudes towards informal payments: accepting informal payments, doubting about informal payments and opposing informal payments. Those who accept informal payments (mostly young or elderly people, living in the capital) consider these payments as an expression of gratitude and perceive them as inevitable due to the low funding of the health care system. Those who doubt about informal payments (mostly respondents outside the capital, with higher education and higher household income) are not certain whether these payments are inevitable, perceive them as similar to corruption rather than gratitude, and would rather use private services to avoid these payments. We find that the opposition to informal payments (mostly among men from small households and low income households) can be explained by their lower ability and willingness to pay. CONCLUSIONS: A large share of Hungarian health care consumers has a rather positive attitude towards informal payments, perceiving them as “inevitable due to the low funding of the health care system”. From a policy point-of-view, the change of this consumer attitude will be essential to deal with these payments in addition to other policy strategies.
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spelling pubmed-36061402013-03-23 Exploring consumers’ attitudes towards informal patient payments using the combined method of cluster and multinomial regression analysis - the case of Hungary Baji, Petra Pavlova, Milena Gulácsi, László Groot, Wim BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: Previous studies on informal patient payments have mostly focused on the magnitude and determinants of these payments while the attitudes of health care actors towards these payments are less well known. This study aims to reveal the attitudes of Hungarian health care consumers towards informal payments to provide a better understanding of this phenomenon. METHODS: For the analysis, we use data from a survey carried out in 2010 in Hungary involving a representative sample of 1037 respondents. We use cluster analysis to identify the main attitude groups related to informal payments based on the respondents’ perception of and behavior related to informal payments. Multinomial logistic regression is applied to examine the differences between these groups in terms of socio-demographic characteristics, as well as past utilization and informal payments paid for health care services. RESULTS: We identified three main different attitudes towards informal payments: accepting informal payments, doubting about informal payments and opposing informal payments. Those who accept informal payments (mostly young or elderly people, living in the capital) consider these payments as an expression of gratitude and perceive them as inevitable due to the low funding of the health care system. Those who doubt about informal payments (mostly respondents outside the capital, with higher education and higher household income) are not certain whether these payments are inevitable, perceive them as similar to corruption rather than gratitude, and would rather use private services to avoid these payments. We find that the opposition to informal payments (mostly among men from small households and low income households) can be explained by their lower ability and willingness to pay. CONCLUSIONS: A large share of Hungarian health care consumers has a rather positive attitude towards informal payments, perceiving them as “inevitable due to the low funding of the health care system”. From a policy point-of-view, the change of this consumer attitude will be essential to deal with these payments in addition to other policy strategies. BioMed Central 2013-02-15 /pmc/articles/PMC3606140/ /pubmed/23414488 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-13-62 Text en Copyright ©2013 Baji et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Baji, Petra
Pavlova, Milena
Gulácsi, László
Groot, Wim
Exploring consumers’ attitudes towards informal patient payments using the combined method of cluster and multinomial regression analysis - the case of Hungary
title Exploring consumers’ attitudes towards informal patient payments using the combined method of cluster and multinomial regression analysis - the case of Hungary
title_full Exploring consumers’ attitudes towards informal patient payments using the combined method of cluster and multinomial regression analysis - the case of Hungary
title_fullStr Exploring consumers’ attitudes towards informal patient payments using the combined method of cluster and multinomial regression analysis - the case of Hungary
title_full_unstemmed Exploring consumers’ attitudes towards informal patient payments using the combined method of cluster and multinomial regression analysis - the case of Hungary
title_short Exploring consumers’ attitudes towards informal patient payments using the combined method of cluster and multinomial regression analysis - the case of Hungary
title_sort exploring consumers’ attitudes towards informal patient payments using the combined method of cluster and multinomial regression analysis - the case of hungary
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3606140/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23414488
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-13-62
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