BACKGROUND The reasons for low utilisation of maternal health services in settings where the user-fee removal policy has been implemented continue to generate scholarly debates. Evidence of whether user-fee removal benefits the poor women in underserved settings is scanty and inconsistent. This article examines use of maternal health care services in the context of free maternal healthcare and ...

METHODS. Baseline characteristics determined to be potential predictors of asthma severity were examined: demographics, asthma symptoms, medication use, healthcare utilization, early life medical history, family history, allergen exposure and allergic disease, and pollutant exposure. Bivariate andmultivariate analyseswere performed by using logistic regression to examine the association of pred...

BACKGROUND While a number of studies have examined the factors affecting accessibility to and utilisation of healthcare services by persons with disability in general, there is little evidence about disabled women's access to maternal health services in low-income countries and few studies consult disabled women themselves to understand their experience of care and the challenges they face in a...

The steady rise in healthcare costs has deprived over 45 million Americans of healthcare services (1, 2) and has encouraged healthcare providers to look for opportunities to improve their operational efficiency. Prior studies have shown that evidence of healthcare seeking intent in Internet searches correlates well with healthcare resource utilization. Given the ubiquitous nature of mobile Inte...

BACKGROUND The three delays model proposes that maternal mortality is associated with delays in: 1) deciding to seek care; 2) reaching the healthcare facility; and 3) receiving care. Previously, the majority of women who died were reported to have experienced type 1 and 2 delays. With increased coverage of healthcare services, we sought to explore the relative contribution of each type of delay...

BACKGROUND To reduce financial barriers to access, and improve access to and use of skilled maternal and newborn healthcare services, the government of Ghana, in 2003, implemented a new maternal healthcare policy that provided free maternity care services in all public and mission healthcare facilities. Although supervised delivery in Ghana has increased from 47% in 2003 to 55% in 2010, strikin...

METHODS. Baseline characteristics determined to be potential predictors of asthma severity were examined: demographics, asthma symptoms, medication use, healthcare utilization, early life medical history, family history, allergen exposure and allergic disease, and pollutant exposure. Bivariate andmultivariate analyseswere performed by using logistic regression to examine the association of pred...

background and objectives: hospital bed utilization is influenced by various factors, which may be categorized into patient-related, physician-related, and administration-related issues. it could be argued that the causes of inappropriate hospital bed utilization would be perceived differently by the clinicians and the patients. given the unique role of clinical practitioners in quality of care...

INTRODUCTION Multimorbidity has been linked to elevated healthcare utilization and previous studies have found that socioeconomic status is an important factor associated with multimorbidity. Nonetheless, little is known regarding the impact of multimorbidity and socioeconomic status on healthcare costs and whether inequities in healthcare exist between socioeconomic classes within a universal ...