Medical Informatics Research Center, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran.
Department of Health Management and Economics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
PLoS One. 2019 Apr 26;14(4):e0214783. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0214783. eCollection 2019.
Catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) is an indicator used by the World Health Organization (WHO) to assess equity in households' payments to the health system. In this paper, we prospectively calculated the population at risk of facing catastrophic expenditure due to purchasing three selected medicines (metformin, atorvastatin and amoxicillin) in Iran.
This study draws on the data set of the Iranian National Household Survey of 38244 households in Iran. CHE was calculated based on "capacity to pay" using different thresholds.
20, 16 and 3 households had to spend more than 40% of their capacity to pay on amoxicillin, atorvastatin and metformin respectively. Lowest priced generic (LPG) medicines were found more affordable than the original brand (OB) medicines. Age, literacy and gender of head of household, economic status, settlement, size and number of breadwinners in the households share important association with CHE.
Requirement of these specific medicines for long-term may subject the Iranian households to CHE. The study demonstrates important and specific insights for health policy makers in Iran to protect the households from healthcare catastrophes.
灾难性卫生支出（CHE）是世界卫生组织（WHO）用来评估家庭向卫生系统支付款项公平性的一个指标。本文前瞻性地计算了伊朗因购买三种选定药品（二甲双胍、阿托伐他汀和阿莫西林）而面临灾难性支出风险的人口。
本研究利用伊朗全国家庭调查的 38244 户家庭数据集。根据“支付能力”，使用不同的阈值计算 CHE。
20%、16%和 3%的家庭需要花费超过其支付能力的 40%来购买阿莫西林、阿托伐他汀和二甲双胍。低价仿制药比原研药更实惠。家庭的户主年龄、文化程度和性别、经济状况、居住地点、家庭规模和养家糊口人数等与 CHE 有重要关联。
这些特定药品的长期需求可能使伊朗家庭面临 CHE。该研究为伊朗卫生政策制定者提供了重要而具体的见解，以保护家庭免受医疗灾难的影响。
