Household out-of-pocket medical and dental expenses among residents of Modinagar city: A crossectional questionnaire study

Abstract

Introduction: Out-of-pocket (OOP) payments are the principal source of health care finance in most Asian countries, and India is no exception. Availability and accessibility of the health care are important for the overall health status of any community. Aim: To assess the proportion of monthly family income spent on medical and dental expenses. Materials and Methods: A door to door survey was conducted in Govinpuri ward of Modinagar using dual stage random sampling. A 14-item open-ended questionnaire was used, which was filled by the investigator by interviewing the head of the family. Data were entered into Microsoft excel and analyzed using SPSS version 19 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Results: A total of 101 families were included in the study. The major amount of the monthly family income was spent on medical treatment as compared to dental treatment. The average OOP expenditure on the dental and medical treatment was 2135.94 ± 656.8 international normalized ratio (INR) and 8771.28 ± 1056.43 INR ( P = 0.038), respectively. Medical insurance formed a substantial proportion of the monthly family expenditure as compared to dental insurance ( P = 0.023). The total medical expenses were 13.21%, and dental expenses were 8.84% of family income. Conclusion: The present study revealed that the family expenditure on medical and dental treatments differs significantly among the peri-urban population of Modinagar. The average three-month expenditure on the dental treatment was found to be rather depressing when compared to that on medical discourse. There was also a pronounced difference in the dental and medical insurance utilization among the study population.