Zavras Dimitris, Zavras Athanasios I, Kyriopoulos Ilias-Ioannis, Kyriopoulos John
Department of Health Economics, National School of Public Health, 196 Alexandras Avenue, 11521, Athens, Greece.
Department of Pediatric Dentistry, Goldman School of Dental Medicine, Boston University, 100 E Newton Street, Suite 706, Boston, MA, 02118, USA.
BMC Health Serv Res. 2016 Jul 27;16:309. doi: 10.1186/s12913-016-1557-5.
The programme for fiscal consolidation in Greece has led to income decrease and several changes in health policy. In this context, this study aims to assess how economic crisis affected unmet healthcare needs in Greece.
Time series analysis was performed for the years 2004 through 2011 using the EU-SILC database. The dependent variable was the percentage of people who had medical needs but did not use healthcare services. Median income, unemployment and time period were used as independent variables. We also compared self-reported unmet healthcare needs drawn from a national survey conducted in pre-crisis 2006 with a similar survey from 2011 (after the onset of the crisis). A common questionnaire was used in both years to assess unmet healthcare needs, including year of survey, gender, age, health status, chronic disease, educational level, income, employment, health insurance status, and prefecture. The outcome of interest was unmet healthcare needs due to financial reasons. Ordinary least squares, as well as logistic regression analysis were conducted to analyze the results.
Unmet healthcare needs increased after the enactment of austerity measures, while the year of participation in the survey was significantly associated with unmet healthcare needs. Income, educational level, employment status, and having insurance, private or public, were also significant determinants of unmet healthcare needs due to financial reasons.
The adverse economic environment has significantly affected unmet health needs. Therefore health policy actions and social policy measures are essential in order to mitigate the negative impact on access to healthcare services and health status.
希腊的财政整顿计划导致了收入下降以及卫生政策的多项变化。在此背景下，本研究旨在评估经济危机如何影响希腊未满足的医疗需求。
利用欧盟收入和生活条件调查（EU - SILC）数据库对2004年至2011年进行时间序列分析。因变量是有医疗需求但未使用医疗服务的人群百分比。中位数收入、失业率和时间段用作自变量。我们还将2006年危机前进行的全国调查中自我报告的未满足医疗需求与2011年（危机爆发后）的类似调查进行了比较。这两年都使用了一份通用问卷来评估未满足的医疗需求，包括调查年份、性别、年龄、健康状况、慢性病、教育水平、收入、就业、健康保险状况和地区。感兴趣的结果是因经济原因导致的未满足医疗需求。进行了普通最小二乘法以及逻辑回归分析以分析结果。
紧缩措施实施后，未满足的医疗需求增加，而参与调查的年份与未满足的医疗需求显著相关。收入、教育水平、就业状况以及拥有私人或公共保险也是因经济原因导致未满足医疗需求的重要决定因素。
不利的经济环境显著影响了未满足的健康需求。因此，卫生政策行动和社会政策措施对于减轻对获得医疗服务和健康状况的负面影响至关重要。
