Willingness to Pay for Medicines used in the Management of Hypertension and Diabetes Mellitus in Plateau State, Nigeria.

Abstract

Background: Due to poverty, in low- and middle-income countries the increase in cost leading to unwillingness to pay for life long treatment of most chronic diseases like hypertension and diabetes in Nigeria is always on the increase resulting to increase in morbidity and mortality. To fifind out the solution, the willingness to pay for essential medicines by hypertensive and diabetic patients in Jos and environs in 2019 was used as a tool. Method: A cross sectional descriptive study using the health valuation method with the 5 dimension 3 level version of European Quality of Life 5 Dimensions 3 Level Version EQ-5D (EQ-5D-3L) is a generic tool for Patient Reported Outcomes (PRO) measurement that can assess patients' quality of life, irrespective of the disease introduced in 1990 by the European quality of life (EuroQol) group questionnaire was adopted the fifive dimensions namely: Mobility, Self-care, Usual activities, Pain / discomfort, and Anxiety / depression while the 3 Levels include: No problems/ pain/ anxiety, Some problems/ pain/ anxiety, and Extreme problems/ pain/anxiety. Results: Out of the 360 respondents of which majority were females 192 (53.3%), respondents aged 55 years were in majority 303 (84.2%). Those with hypertension were higher 257 (71.40%) than those with diabetes and those with both diseases. Majority of the respondents earn between NGN61,000 to NGN140,000 23 (64.5%) while only 5 (1.4%) of them earn NGN181,000 and above. Conclusion: Most of the respondents (75.4%) where willing to pay between NGN3,000.00 and less for their treatment while only a few (1.2%) where willing to pay NGN15,000.00 and above. Over 70% of the respondents indicated no problems with mobility, self-care, carrying out usual activities, and anxiety/depression while 98.2% had no problems of taking care of themselves. There was signifificant relationship between gender and anxiety/depression (P-0.001). Married respondents reported problems with mobility more than others (P=0.0001). Those who earn between NGN61,000 and NGN100,000 signifificantly did not have any problems with mobility (P=0.0001) and self-care (P=0.031) respectively compared to other income categories.&nbsp