Muluneh Getachew Garedew, Mirkuzie Woldie Kerie and Ayinengida Adamu Walle
Background: A growing body of literature on health care demand has pointed out that individuals are not passive recipients of health services; rather they make active choices about whether or not to make use of particular health care providing facilities. Objective: To assess level of choice for public or private healthcare providing facility and associated factors among government employees in Nekemte town, 2015. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from March 09-30, 2015 among government employees. Simple random sampling technique was employed to select 361 study participants and data were collected using a semi-structured interviewer administered questionnaire. Data were coded and entered into Epi-data version 3.1 and transported into SPSS version 20 for analysis. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were performed. Binary Logistic regression by using backward stepwise method was done to determine presence of statistically significant association between independent variables and the outcome variable at p value <0.05, with 95% CI. Results: Three hundred and forty six employees participated in the study which provided the response rate of 95.8%. Government healthcare facilities were preferred by 57.2% of the study participants while the remaining 42.8% preferred private providers. In this study quality of patient-provider interaction (AOR=3.19), cleanliness of facility (AOR=1.84), satisfaction with usual healthcare providing facility (AOR=2.30), and expenditure at health facility (AOR=1.98) were significantly associated with choice of health facilities. Conclusion: More than half of government employees choose public health facilities as their usual health care provider. Preference to public health facilities could be even higher if the quality of care in the public facilities improves in terms of patient-provider interaction, cleanliness of facility and other factors contributing for patient satisfaction which are widely implied in the literature.
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