Archibong Esther P, Bassey Glory E, Isokon Brown E, Eneji Rosemary
Department of Social Work, University of Calabar, Nigeria.
Department of Sociology, University of Calabar, Nigeria.
Heliyon. 2020 Sep 28;6(9):e04983. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04983. eCollection 2020 Sep.
Throughout the world, socio-economic status differentials of individuals have a lot of influence on privileges and opportunities enjoyed by society members. The different social and economic positions of individuals and income levels oftentimes hinder them from effective use of health care facilities. It is against this background, that the study was designed to investigate income differentials and its influence on utilization of healthcare services among the people of Calabar Metropolis in Cross River State, Nigeria. Relevant body of literature were reviewed and survey design method was adopted. The instruments used were the questionnaire, interview and Focus Group Discussions (FGD). A sample of 360 respondents was selected using a multi-stage sampling procedure for the study. Data was presented using simple percentage calculation while Chi-Square and ANOVA statistical tool was used to test and ascertain the relationship between income level and healthcare services usage at 0.05 level of significance. Findings of the study revealed that level of income and occupational status of individual influence health care service utilization among people in Calabar Metropolis. At the end of the study, several recommendations were made among which were a general improvement of socio-economic status of the people in areas of availability and compulsory education, employment opportunities as well as equitable distribution of income and minimizing cost of health care services for effective and equal utilization.
在世界各地，个人的社会经济地位差异对社会成员所享有的特权和机会有很大影响。个人不同的社会经济地位和收入水平常常阻碍他们有效利用医疗保健设施。正是在这种背景下，本研究旨在调查尼日利亚克罗斯河州卡拉巴尔市居民的收入差异及其对医疗服务利用的影响。回顾了相关文献并采用了调查设计方法。所使用的工具包括问卷、访谈和焦点小组讨论（FGD）。本研究采用多阶段抽样程序选取了360名受访者作为样本。数据采用简单百分比计算呈现，同时使用卡方检验和方差分析统计工具在0.05的显著性水平下检验并确定收入水平与医疗服务使用之间的关系。研究结果表明，个人的收入水平和职业地位影响卡拉巴尔市居民对医疗服务的利用。在研究结束时，提出了若干建议，其中包括在普及义务教育、就业机会以及收入公平分配等方面全面改善民众的社会经济地位，并降低医疗服务成本，以实现有效和平等利用。
