| Abstract |
Introduction: The demand for health care services, expresses the desire to consume
health care services, which turns into active search for such care and is defined by
objectively assessed needs, but depends on many factors such as demographic, social
and economic characteristics of individuals, the health care system, the price of
health services, the level of health etc. To analyze the demand for health services ,
what is important is the effect of human capital theory, first developed by Becker
and then by Grossman, which supports that the person is both consumer and
producer. The resulting product , such as housing, nutrition, physical activity,
education level, harmful habits, mental state, affect the health status of individuals,
hence the use of health services. The use of health care services is expressed as the
percentage of people in need for a particular health service, and who finally receive
that service at some time. In the research for the use of health services
epidemiological, sociological, econometric, and purely statistical methods are used.
The latter are designed to build indicators and models. For primary care, the use of
health services is expressed through indicators of the visits to GPs and other primary
care organizations and through the frequency of prescription, and depend largely on
the age and gender.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the characteristics of the users of health
services in a General Medicine clinic of a rural area of Crete.
The objectives are to investigate the structure of the population, based on the
demographic and social characteristics, the prevalence of chronic diseases and the
point the factors that affect the demand and use of health services (self-reported
health, mental health etc).
Population and method: 638 respondents consisted the population of the study, and
refers to all users of health services who came to a specific general medical clinic at
the health center of Santa Barbara Heraklion, with any justification for use of
health services on a regular daily basis (five working days per week), on fixed
working hours, for 23 consecutive days from 8.30 until 14.00 (one month 03.01.11 to
03.31.11 except Saturday - Sunday). Our study is descriptive and the method of
simple randomized sampling was used. It was conducted based on a structured
questionnaire which was prepared by theoretical and empirical framework, in the
literature on the determinants of the demand and use of health services and consists
of qualitative and quantitative questions.
Results: From our study and in agreement with other studies of Greek and
international literature, the importance not only of age, gender, educational level
and occupational employment and income but also that of the self-reported physical
and mental health as perceived by users, is emerging, referring on the demand and
use of health care services.
Γενική ιατρική & Πρωτοβάθμια φροντίδα υγείας Τμήμα ιατρικής-Πανεπιστήμιο Κρήτης
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Conclusions: We now need a new operating model for Primary Health Care to
improve the health status of the population, through the prevention of causes of
morbidity and mortality, the health promotion and the awareness of users of health
services. Basic premise is the education and training of primary health care
practitioners to ensure better and more efficient provision of comprehensive health
care. It is considered necessary to develop and implement guidelines for the
management of most common diseases of the community and major risk factors at
the primary health care and clinical decision making based on internationally
documented experience with the application of diagnostic and therapeutic protocols,
and clinical audit processes. Furthermore, direct application of tools to provide
primary care services such as operating standards of diagnostic tests, patient
records, medical card, diseases encodings etc. and use of indicators of quality,
satisfaction and patient safety.
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Ζήτηση και χρήση υπηρεσιών υγείας -διερεύνηση του επιπέδου υγείας σε αγροτική περιοχή της Κρήτης
