Exploring Factors Related To Rural Residents' Health Service Need And Utilization In Liangshan County

Objective In order To understand the health service demands in rural area of Shandong province, to analyze outpatients' health Utilization of residents. Find out major affecting factors, and to put forward countermeasures and suggestions to reach aim of making health services work for the residents of Liangshan County.Method In March 2007, a cluster sampling in Liangshan County in Jining, Shandong was conducted based on household health interview survey. The residents were investigated by Stratum-based random sampling method. Evaluate the health service demand and utilization. Two-level logit regression model was used to explore the influence factors related to two-week prevalence, chronic illness prevalence and health service utilization.Result 1 .The residents' Two-week prevalence and chronic illness prevalence are 130.84‰and 99.15‰respectively. Mono-factor analysis showed: the sociology influence factors, such as age, sex, were significant different. The curve of age-specific two weeks prevalence showed "√" shape. 2.Persons with or without physician contact within two weeks are 120.78‰and 15.89%. Persons with or without hospital admission within twelve months are 13.63%o and 47.37% respectively. Mono- factor analysis showed: the sociology influence factors, such as age, marriage, education level, employment were significant different. 3.The average medical expense within two weeks is 134.4 yuan; the expense for drug is 117.2 yuan. The direct expense of hospitalization is 3417.9 yuan; the indirect expense is 206.1 yuan. 4.Most resident selected village and town public clinic. The primary reason of patients' physician within two weeks and persons without hospital admission within twelve months is poor economy. 5.The results of multivariate statistical analysis showed that the main factors affecting service use are age, payment style, marriage, education level, employment, health status and income level.Conclusion Medical health service accessibility of Liangshan County was well. Health service need in rural areas was high while health service utilization was low. Age, sex, marriage, education level, employment, income level were important influence factors of health service need and utilization. We should pay more attention to health care for women and the elderly in order to the health inequity among people. It is very important to increase the knowledge of prevention and cure of disease by strengthening health education among the rural peoples. We shoud improve local economy, increase basic medical institutions, try to establish a new mode of countryside health service and train basic medical stuffs.