Abstract
A modern health system which provides high quality care has trickle-down effect on the quality of life of the individualcitizens and the overall economic development of the country. One method which is applicable to the measurement ofquality of health care is consumers’ ratings of the services provided. This paper investigated the overall level ofsatisfaction associated with the choice of a health care provider. Parents whose children (aged-under five) fell sick fourweeks prior to the survey and had sought intervention within 2 days were asked their overall level of satisfaction withhealth care providers. Using the ordered logit model the study confirms the notion in Ghana and elsewhere that privatehealth care is associated with higher levels of satisfaction or quality. Control variables that were found to be statisticallysignificant were gender of the child, maternal age and education, distance and waiting time among other. To the best ofour knowledge, no study has examined the effect of provider choice on overall satisfaction of health care in Ghana.
Highlights
October, 2009 analysis of satisfaction with medical services was conducted in 1997 and 2003 as part of the Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire
In 2007, malaria accounted for 38.6% of outpatient attendance and was responsible for over 18% of deaths reported at health facilities (Ghana Health Service 2007)
We found that users of private and public health facilities are more likely to be very satisfied with health services than their counterparts who seek health care from traditional healers, pharmacies/over the counter-drugs
Summary
2009 analysis of satisfaction with medical services was conducted in 1997 and 2003 as part of the Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire. Previous studies on parental satisfaction of health care for children aged under-five regarding the services of a given health provider is virtually non-existent in Ghana and elsewhere. We model the overall level of satisfaction associated with the consumption of a particular providers’ health services using a 5 point Likert scale from (1) very dissatisfied to (5) very satisfied. We test the hypothesis that there is no difference in the level of satisfaction associated with the choice of a given health care provider. In the area of health care, the public and private sectors are important stakeholders with the public sector organized according to national (2 teaching hospitals), regional (10 regional hospitals), district (281 district public and other hospitals), sub-district (622 public health centres) and community about 1 658 Community Health Planning Service and maternity homes at the community level (Ghana Health Service, 2005). Modern health care is complemented by traditional medicine which is quite popular among rural dwellers
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