Perceptions of Roma People Towards Public Health System and a Classification into Homogeneous Groups Using K-means Cluster Analysis

Abstract

Background The our knowledge about the attitudes of the Romatowards health system has not been fully investigated. Objectives To present theperceptions, the feelings and the beliefs of Roma people towards public healthsystem. Aims To investigate the attitudes of the Roma towards public health system Methods Participants were 361 Romani, living in the centralGreece area. The Others as Shamer Scale, Experience of Shame Scale, State/TraitAnxiety Inventory, Family Environment Scale and Symptom Check List wereadministered to collect the data along with a detailed questionnaire whichrecorded the social and economic factors that may affect the psychologicalcharacteristics studied. Perceptions and beliefs of Roma people towards publichealth facilities were recorded using the PBQ questionnaire that was designedand administered for first time in this study. Results Feelings of abandonment and social discriminationcorresponded to higher scores of shame. The inability to understand medicalinstructions, the feeling of being different and the need to surrounded byrelatives while in the hospital are correlated with psychopathology and shameindexes whereas strong family structure corresponds to improved perceptionstowards public health system. As an attempt to classify the respondents inhomogeneous groups towards their responses in PBQ questionnaire we appliedcluster analysis and a three group solution is proposed. Lack of education andharder living condition characterize the cluster with the most negativefeelings towards public health system. Conclusions . The results ofthis paper may be useful in policy makers and persons looking to create interventionsin this minority.