Su A T, Kuan J W, Shanat M, Baderin O S, Haalah M
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Sarawak, Malaysia.
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts, Sarawak, Malaysia.
Med J Malaysia. 2023 Sep;78(5):621-626.
Financial affordability to purchase commodities for disease prevention is an important public health issue. The objective of this paper is to report the financial affordability and willingness to pay amongst the parents of government students for their children's nonmedical mask use, using a newly created Household Face Mask Affordability Questionnaire (MAQ).
This was a cross-sectional study involving the parents or guardians of 50.6% (44/87) government schools in the whole of Kuching Division of Sarawak. The sampling method was multistage cluster sampling, whereby stage one involved random sampling of 49.2% (30/61) primary schools and 53.8% (14/46) secondary schools in the Kuching Division, followed by stage two cluster sampling of one class per non-examination standard in each randomly sampled school. All students in the sampled classes were asked to bring a face-validated questionnaire (MAQ) back home to be answered by one of their parents or a guardian. A total of 2559 out of 3661 distributed questionnaires were collected, with a response rate of 70%. The data collection period was between April and June of 2022 so as the recall bias of the information collected, especially on the actual spending on the face masks for the school going students, was minimised. The relevant summary statistics for self-perceived face masks characteristics, face mask expenses, affordability and willingness to pay were calculated. We regress separately the monthly affordability and willingness to pay amount against age, occupation, marital status, total number of children, monthly income and monthly saving to build predictive models for affordability and willingness to pay amount per child per month.
The average Scale-level Face Validity Indexes for all aspects of validity (clarity, comprehension, relevancy, representativeness) are high (0.91 to 1.00) for MAQ. Most of the respondents were mothers, married, working as private employees with a mean age of 41 and belonged to the B40 and M40 group. The average monthly saving per family was RM540, which was about 15% of the total income. The average actual monthly spending to purchase face masks for one child is RM24. On average, a family can afford to pay RM23.80 for one child per month to purchase face masks. The willingness to pay for the same was RM25.27. The median affordability, willingness to pay and actual spending for face masks per child was RM16.67 per month. Taking 75th percentile as the reasonable maximum expenses per child for face masks per month, the affordable amount by most parents is RM30, with the willingness to pay at 10% higher. Affordability to purchase a face mask is influenced by the marital status, occupation, income, saving and the number of dependent of the breadwinner of a household. The most important face mask characteristics expected by the parents are better filtration efficiency and easier breathability.
The affordability and willingness to pay the amount to purchase face masks amongst parents of government students in Sarawak were RM30 and RM33 per child per month, respectively.
购买疾病预防用品的经济承受能力是一个重要的公共卫生问题。本文的目的是使用新创建的家庭口罩可承受性问卷（MAQ），报告政府学生家长为其子女使用非医用口罩的经济承受能力和支付意愿。
这是一项横断面研究，涉及砂拉越古晋分区50.6%（44/87）的政府学校的家长或监护人。抽样方法为多阶段整群抽样，第一阶段是在古晋分区随机抽取49.2%（30/61）的小学和53.8%（14/46）的中学，第二阶段是在每个随机抽取的学校中，对每个非考试年级的一个班级进行整群抽样。要求抽样班级的所有学生将一份经过面部验证的问卷（MAQ）带回家，由他们的一位家长或监护人回答。在分发的3661份问卷中，共收集到2559份，回复率为70%。数据收集期为2022年4月至6月，以尽量减少所收集信息的回忆偏差，特别是关于在校学生购买口罩的实际支出。计算了自我感知的口罩特征、口罩费用、可承受性和支付意愿的相关汇总统计数据。我们分别将每月的可承受性和支付意愿金额与年龄、职业、婚姻状况、子女总数、月收入和月储蓄进行回归，以建立每个孩子每月可承受性和支付意愿金额的预测模型。
MAQ在有效性的各个方面（清晰度、理解性、相关性、代表性）的平均量表级面部有效性指数都很高（0.91至1.00）。大多数受访者是母亲，已婚，为私人雇员，平均年龄为41岁，属于B40和M40群体。每个家庭的平均月储蓄为540林吉特，约占总收入的15%。为一个孩子购买口罩的平均实际月支出为24林吉特。平均而言，一个家庭每月可为一个孩子支付购买口罩的费用为23.80林吉特。为此的支付意愿为25.27林吉特。每个孩子购买口罩的可承受性、支付意愿和实际支出的中位数为每月16.67林吉特。以第75百分位数作为每个孩子每月购买口罩的合理最高费用，大多数家长的可承受金额为30林吉特，支付意愿高出10%。购买口罩的可承受性受家庭主要收入者的婚姻状况、职业、收入、储蓄和受抚养人数的影响。家长期望的最重要的口罩特征是更好的过滤效率和更易透气。
砂拉越政府学生家长购买口罩的可承受性和支付意愿分别为每个孩子每月30林吉特和33林吉特。
