Modelling the Household Cost of Paediatric Malaria Treatment in a Rural County in Kenya: Do Non-user Fee Payments Matter? A Partial Cost of Illness Analysis
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Date
2019Author
Kodhiambo, Maurice O
Oyugi, Julius A
Amugune, Beatrice K
Type
ArticleLanguage
enMetadata
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ABSTRACT
Objective The objective of this study was to develop
an econometric model for the cost of treatment of
paediatric malaria from a patient perspective in a resource
scarce rural setting of Homa Bay County, Kenya. We
sought to investigate the main contributors as well as
the contribution of non-user fee payments to the total
household cost of care. Costs were measured from a
patient perspective.
Design The study was conducted as a health facility
based cross sectional survey targeting paediatric patients.
Setting The study was conducted in 13 health facilities
ranging from level II to level V in Homa Bay County which
is in the Eastern shores of Lake Victoria, Kenya. This is a
malaria endemic area.
Participants We enrolled 254 inpatient children (139
males and 115 females) all of whom participated up to the
end of this study.
Primary outcome measure The primary outcome
measure was the cost of pediatric malaria care borne
by the patient. This was measured by asking exiting
caregivers to estimate the cost of various items
contributing to their total expenditure on care seeking.
Results A total of 254 respondents who consented from
13 public government health facilities were interviewed.
Age, number of days spent at the health facility, being
treated at a level V facility, medical officer prescribing and
seeking initial treatment from a retail shop were found
significant predictors of cost.
Conclusion Higher level health facilities in Homa Bay
County, where the more specialised medical workers
are stationed, are more costly hence barring the poorest
from obtaining quality paediatric malaria care from here.
Waiving user fees alone may not be sufficient to guarantee
access to care by patients due to unofficial fees and nonuser fees expenditures.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Subject
Paediatric Malaria TreatmentRights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
- Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) [10378]
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