A Study on the Association of Divorce and Access to Healthcare Services among Marriage Immigrants

Abstract

<h3>Research Objectives</h3> To examine whether divorce in married immigrants is independently associated with access to healthcare services. <h3>Design</h3> Cross-sectional study. <h3>Setting</h3> Community setting. <h3>Participants</h3> We analyzed data with 11,778 adults who participated in the 2018 Korea National Multicultural Family Survey. <h3>Interventions</h3> Not applicable. <h3>Main Outcome Measures</h3> Access to healthcare services was evaluated through questions. In the past year, we investigated whether there was any experience in not going to the hospital despite being sick. The dependent variable was the marital status of married immigrants. <h3>Results</h3> Among the total subjective, divorced married immigrants was 5.8% (n = 691). The divorce group consists of 107 (15.5%) males and 584 (84.5%) females, with an average age of 45.2 years (SD = 10.9). The non-divorced group was 1992 males (18.0%) and 9095 (82.0%), and the average age was 39.1 years (SD = 10.5). After propensity score matching, we confirm that the standardized mean difference of all variables was the cut-off range (all p>0.05). Divorced marriage migrants were more difficult to access healthcare services compared to non-divorced marriage immigrants (adjusted odds ratio 1.423, 95% CI [1.075, 1.882]). <h3>Conclusions</h3> Our research finding confirmed that married immigrants made it difficult in accessing healthcare services due to divorce. Divorce was associated with accessing healthcare services. Studying access to healthcare services in minority populations is necessary to improve the quality of public health. Our research suggests that remedial measures are needed to prevent the decline in access to healthcare services caused by the changing role of married migrants. <h3>Author(s) Disclosures</h3> The author declares that (s)he has no relevant or material financial interests that relate to the research described in this paper.