OUT OF POCKET EXPENDITURE ON DELIVERY AND POSTNATAL CARE IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE HOSPITALS

Abstract

Abstract Background: Pakistan is a developing country of South Asia and currently facing many challenges and public health especially maternal health is one of the emerging issues. There is limited empirical evidence on the out of pocket expenditure (OOPE) on selection of public and private healthcare facility. This area was overlooked in the research and the current study has tried to investigate the impact of OOPE on public and private hospital selection for delivery and postnatal care. Methods: survey approach was used. Primary data was collected from the Rajanpur district of Punjab Pakistan. Descriptive statistics and backward binary logistic regression were used. Non-probability convenience sampling technique was used for selection of sample size. Total 368 completed questionnaires were used in the analysis. Findings/Results: results revealed that Results also revealed that mothers with high in age, education were found significant and their spouse with government jobs, self employed prefer to go to public sector hospitals for delivery. Those respondents having income between 10 thousand PKR to 20 thousand PKR likely to go to public sector facility and mothers having more children such as 3-4 or above like to go public hospitals for delivery. Moreover distance from home to hospital and transportation charges and OOPE also play significant role in selection of healthcare facility. On the other hand age of mother, transportation and distance from home to hospital does not play any significant role for postnatal care while remaining factors such as education of mother, occupation of mother and household head, family income, number of children and out of pocket medical expenses plays significant role in selection of hospital for postnatal care.