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The Association of Post-Materialism with Health Care Use. Findings of a General Population Survey in Germany

(1) The aim of this study was to identify the association between post-materialism and health care use (in terms of the frequency of doctor visits and the reason for doctor visits). (2) Data were taken from the German General Social Survey (a representative sample of individuals aged 18 years and ov...

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Autores principales: Hajek, André, König, Hans-Helmut
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7730980/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33260640
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17238869
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author Hajek, André
König, Hans-Helmut
author_facet Hajek, André
König, Hans-Helmut
author_sort Hajek, André
collection PubMed
description (1) The aim of this study was to identify the association between post-materialism and health care use (in terms of the frequency of doctor visits and the reason for doctor visits). (2) Data were taken from the German General Social Survey (a representative sample of individuals aged 18 years and over, n = 3338). The Inglehart’s post-materialist index was used to quantify post-materialism. The doctor visits (self-reported) in the past three months served as an outcome measure. The reasons for seeing a doctor served as an additional outcome measure (acute illness; chronic illness; feeling unwell; requesting advice; visit to the doctor’s office without consulting the doctor (e.g., need to get a prescription); preventive medical check-up/vaccination). (3) After adjusting for several covariates, negative binomial regressions revealed that compared with materialism, post-materialism was associated with decreased doctor visits (total sample; women). Moreover, the likelihood of visiting the doctor for reasons of chronic illnesses was lower in post-materialistic women, whereas the likelihood of visiting the doctor for reasons of preventive medical check-up/vaccination was higher in post-materialistic women. (4) Study findings identify an unexplored link between post-materialism and doctor visits in women. One may conclude that in the long-term, the increased likelihood of preventive medical check-ups in post-materialistic women will be beneficial in decreasing the need for doctor visits for reasons of chronic illnesses. However, future research is required to elucidate the underlying mechanisms.
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spelling pubmed-77309802020-12-12 The Association of Post-Materialism with Health Care Use. Findings of a General Population Survey in Germany Hajek, André König, Hans-Helmut Int J Environ Res Public Health Article (1) The aim of this study was to identify the association between post-materialism and health care use (in terms of the frequency of doctor visits and the reason for doctor visits). (2) Data were taken from the German General Social Survey (a representative sample of individuals aged 18 years and over, n = 3338). The Inglehart’s post-materialist index was used to quantify post-materialism. The doctor visits (self-reported) in the past three months served as an outcome measure. The reasons for seeing a doctor served as an additional outcome measure (acute illness; chronic illness; feeling unwell; requesting advice; visit to the doctor’s office without consulting the doctor (e.g., need to get a prescription); preventive medical check-up/vaccination). (3) After adjusting for several covariates, negative binomial regressions revealed that compared with materialism, post-materialism was associated with decreased doctor visits (total sample; women). Moreover, the likelihood of visiting the doctor for reasons of chronic illnesses was lower in post-materialistic women, whereas the likelihood of visiting the doctor for reasons of preventive medical check-up/vaccination was higher in post-materialistic women. (4) Study findings identify an unexplored link between post-materialism and doctor visits in women. One may conclude that in the long-term, the increased likelihood of preventive medical check-ups in post-materialistic women will be beneficial in decreasing the need for doctor visits for reasons of chronic illnesses. However, future research is required to elucidate the underlying mechanisms. MDPI 2020-11-28 2020-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7730980/ /pubmed/33260640 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17238869 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Hajek, André
König, Hans-Helmut
The Association of Post-Materialism with Health Care Use. Findings of a General Population Survey in Germany
title The Association of Post-Materialism with Health Care Use. Findings of a General Population Survey in Germany
title_full The Association of Post-Materialism with Health Care Use. Findings of a General Population Survey in Germany
title_fullStr The Association of Post-Materialism with Health Care Use. Findings of a General Population Survey in Germany
title_full_unstemmed The Association of Post-Materialism with Health Care Use. Findings of a General Population Survey in Germany
title_short The Association of Post-Materialism with Health Care Use. Findings of a General Population Survey in Germany
title_sort association of post-materialism with health care use. findings of a general population survey in germany
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7730980/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33260640
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17238869
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