This study was designed to identify: (1) predictors of 12-month healthcare service utilization for mental health reasons, framed by the Andersen model, among a population cohort in an epidemiological catchment area; and (2) correlates associated with healthcare service utilization for mental health reasons among individuals with and without mental disorders respectively. Analyses comprised univ...

BACKGROUND Utilization of healthcare in Ghana's novel National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has been increasing since inception with associated high claims bill which threatens the scheme's financial sustainability. This paper investigates the presence of adverse selection by assessing the effect of healthcare utilization and frequency of use on NHIS renewal. METHOD Routine enrolment and ut...

OBJECTIVES Many nonpathologists and some pathologists consider utilization review essential to laboratory quality improvement, but (1) confusion surrounding the definition of "appropriate" laboratory utilization, (2) the reliance on manual chart review, and (3) a lack of leadership have contributed to its unstandardized implementation. How the solutions to these barriers have evolved since the ...

OBJECTIVE Evidence suggests that medication errors have a higher incidence in children and infants than in adults. At present, there is limited local data that investigates the drug prescription trends in pediatric populations. This study aims at understanding drug utilization patterns in pediatric patients at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital (SQUH), Oman. MATERIALS AND METHODS A retrospecti...

Drug therapy accounts for a major portion of health expenditure. A useful strategy for achieving cost efficient healthcare is drug utilisation research as it forms the basis for making amendments in drug policies and helps in rational drug use. The present observational study was conducted to generate data on drug utilization in inpatients of our tertiary care hospital to identify potential tar...

This study aimed to evaluate drug utilization in pediatric out-patient department of a tertiary care teaching hospital. The patient and drug information of 254 patients was analyzed for WHO recommended prescribing indicators. The average number of drugs per prescription was 2.31 and 45% of medicines were prescribed from National List of Essential Medicines. The use of injectibles was low (1.18%...

BACKGROUND Although literature has associated geodemographic factors with healthcare service utilization, little is known about how these factors - such as population size, age profile, service accessibility, and educational profile - interact to influence service utilization. This study fills this gap in the literature by examining both the direct and the moderating effects of geodemographic p...

 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 car...

BACKGROUND A common characteristic of health systems in most developing countries is unequal access to health services. As a result, members of the poorest population groups often do not receive formal attention for health services, because they cannot afford it. In 2001 in Mexico, to address income-related differences in the use of health services, the government launched a major healthcare re...

The aim of this study was to investigate healthcare utilization patterns over a six-year period among older people (60+), classified as dependent/independent in Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and/or at/not at risk of depression and to identify healthcare utilization predictors. A sample (n=1402) comprising ten age cohorts aged between 60 and 96 years was drawn from the Swedish National study ...