Abstract
BackgroundFew previous studies have specifically addressed the health care utilization situation of the physically disabled. This study aimed to investigate the utilization of free adult preventive health care for physically disabled people and its’ affecting factors.MethodsThe data was obtained from three nationwide databases from 2006 to 2008. This study comprised 329,264 physically disabled people in Taiwan above the age of 40 who had eligible health checks during 2008. We employed descriptive statistics to analyze the use and rate of free preventive health care use by physically disabled adults. Logistic regression analysis was used to explore the factors that affect physically disabled adults’ use of free adult preventive health care.Results16.37% of the physically disabled adults used free adult preventive health care. Women (17.66%), married (17.16%), a junior high education level (17.89%), and mildly disabled adults (18.77%) had the highest use rate among various participant subgroups. The variables that significantly influenced the use of free adult preventive health care by the physically disabled included gender, age, education, marital status, urbanization of the residence areas, monthly payroll, aboriginal status, catastrophic illnesses status, relevant chronic diseases, and severity of disability.ConclusionsPhysically disabled using preventive health care tend to be low. Governments should use the media to reinforce propagation and education of these services to specific, low-utilization groups, and encourage doctors to actively provide preventive health care to communities.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-014-0610-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Few previous studies have addressed the health care utilization situation of the physically disabled
Participants with education levels less than or equivalent to elementary school accounted for the majority (51.1%; n = 168,180), followed by junior high level (14.9%; n = 49,103)
Factors related to use of free adult preventive health care As shown in Table 2, this study found that gender, age, education, marital status, urbanization of residence area (URA), monthly insured payroll, aboriginal status, catastrophic illnesses status, relevant chronic diseases, and severity of the disability had significant effects on the use of free adult preventive health care by the physically disabled (P
Summary
Few previous studies have addressed the health care utilization situation of the physically disabled. This study aimed to investigate the utilization of free adult preventive health care for physically disabled people and its’ affecting factors. Because nerve damage from an injury in physically disabled people causes chronic pain [1,2], depression [3], and other complications, these patients lack the motivation to participate in various activities. Being overweight and obese cause changes in the modes of carbohydrate metabolism, increasing the prevalence of diabetes, hyperlipidemia, Nosek et al [10] found that physically disabled women had 4 times the likelihood of suffering from diabetes, and 2 times the likelihood of suffering from hypertension than do average women. Poliomyelitis patients have a higher hyperlipidemia occurrence than the average person, and typically have two or more coronary artery disease risk factors [14]. Until the end of 2011, Taiwan’s physically disabled population (386,217 people) accounted for 1.66% of the total population, and constituted the group with the most people (35.09%) [15,16] with mentally or physically disabilities (handicapped)
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