The Research On Health Status And Health Service Utilization Of Residents In Different Rural Areas

Along with the advance of socio-economic and demotic standard of living, great changes have taken place in the health status and health service utilization of China's rural population. But at the same time the rapid increase of health expenditure has led to an inequity. Especially in recent years, the problem that it is difficult and expensive for the residents to see the doctor has become increasingly prominent and has aroused widespread concern in society, particularly in rural areas, because of the poor sanitation, low education level ,effected by eudalism and customs, rural residents' health status and hospitalization behavior is especially noteworthy. The objectives of this study are through analisis to explore possible influencing factors and to provide evidence for decision-making in improving rural residengts' health status and health service utilization and enhancing the health level and life quality.This paper reports on a study of four counties in China including Anyue County in Sichuan province, Linquan County in Anhui province, Cao County in Shandong province and Chiping County in Shandong province. According to socio-economic development levels and geographical distribution, adopting cluster stratified random sampling, each county selects four towns and each town selects four villages .About 1810 households were interviewed. This paper selected 1710 households and 2762 self-answer-people as samples.After being coded, the data was collected and inputted into computers to set up a datdbase built up by Microsoft Access Software and analysed by EXCEL and SPSS 13.0.The data for this study was quantitative, and the main contents were as follows:â‘ the income and expenditure of the family last year (the year 2005);â‘¡personal and sociological characteristics of family members;â‘¢family members' health status (physical, mental and self-rated health);â‘£health services utilization of outpatients and inpatient.The main results include: 1,the health status of rural residents: (1) the residents' one-month prevalence was 39.3%; the main factors affecting pravelence were the quality of drinking water, economy, age and education level; (2) the prevalence rate of chronic diseases was 20.2%, rural residents are suffering from menace of both infectious and chronic diseases; (3) the proportion of rural residents who had the trendency of potential mental diseases was high up to 30.4%; economy and age were the main influencing factors; mental health should be paid more attention; (4) most residents had a better self-rated heath, what's more, there was a correlation between prevalence rate, mental health and self-rated health;2,the health service utilization status of rural residents: (1) Residents' one-month consultation rate was 24.6%; the one-month consultation rate of patients was 37.4%; the one-month non-consultation rate was 37.4%; there were 44.8% of the patient who didn't seek care because they felt they were lightly sick and 34.3% of the outpatients can't see a doctor because of economic difficulties; the main factors affecting rural residents' consultation rate were gender, age and economy; (2) residents' average hospitalization rate was 5.5%, hospitalized patients mainly consulted county hospitals and township hospitals; economic difficulties accounted for 80.0% of the reasons why residents who should be hospitalized failed to hospitalization; the main factors influencing hospitalization were gender and whether residents suffered from chronic diseases.Conclusin: The healrh service demands among rural residents were high.In rural areas, not only residents were threatened by both infectious and chronic diseases, but mental health had become a hidden trouble to people's health as well. Residents' one-month consultation rate and annual hospitalization rate were lower, what revealed their needs had been suppressed. Economy was the main factor that influenced health service utilization. The increase of self-treatment brought forward a new request to health service.Suggestion:1,Developing rural economy to increase residents' revenue, make sure they have abilities to utiliza health service;2,Multiple-levels medical security system should be developed and improved to help to resist the risk of diseases;3,Improving health education and health promotion in rural areas to enhance residents' awareness of health care;4,Perfecting the operation of rural three-tier medical and preventive health care network and elevating the overall levels of rural health services;5,Make greater efforts to improve public health in rural areas to strengthen primary prevetion.