Health insurance status and its determinants among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in a tertiary teaching hospital in Malaysia

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 17; no. 5; p. e0267897
• Main Authors: Al-Sanaani, Essam Ali, Ismail, Aniza, Abdul Manaf, Mohd Rizal, Suddin, Leny Suzana, Mustafa, Norlaila, Sukor, Norlela, Alabed, Alabed Ali A, Alkhodary, Ahmed Abdelmajed, Aljunid, Syed Mohamed
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 05.05.2022; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Chronic illnesses; Costs; Data collection; Diabetes; Diabetes mellitus; Diabetes mellitus (non-insulin dependent); Disease; Economic factors; Economics; Education; Ethnicity; Expenditures; Family income; Health care; Health care facilities; Health care policy; Health facilities; Health insurance; Hospitals; Households; Insurance; Insurance policies; Marital status; Medicine; Medicine and Health Sciences; Patients; People and Places; Public health; Questionnaires; Sample size; Social Sciences; Sociodemographics; Taxation; Tertiary; Uninsured people; Validity; Malaysia
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0267897

Even in a country with a tax-based healthcare financing system, health insurance can play an important role, especially in the management of chronic diseases with high disease and economic burden such as Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). The insurance coverage among T2DM patients in Malaysia is currently unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the insurance status of T2DM patients in public and private healthcare facilities in Malaysia, and the association between this status and patients' sociodemographic and economic factors. A cross-sectional study among T2DM patients seeking inpatient or outpatient treatment at a public tertiary hospital (Hospital Canselor Tuanku Muhriz) and a private tertiary hospital (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Specialist Centre) in Kuala Lumpur between August 2019 and March 2020. Patients were identified via convenience sampling using a self-administered questionnaire. Data collection focused on identifying insurance status as the dependent factor while the independent factors were the patients' sociodemographic characteristics and economic factors. Of 400 T2DM patients, 313 responded (response rate, 78.3%) and 76.0% were uninsured. About 69.6% of the respondents had low monthly incomes of <RM5000. Two-thirds of participants (59.1%) spent RM100-500 for outpatient visits whilst 58.5% spent <RM100 on medicines per month (RM1 = USD0.244). Patients who visited a private facility had five times more likely to have insurance than patients who visited a public facility. Participants aged 18-49 years with higher education levels were 4.8 times more likely to be insured than participants aged ≥50 years with low education levels (2 times). The majority of T2DM patients were uninsured. The main factors determining health insurance status were public facilities, age of ≥ 50 years, low education level, unemployment, and monthly expenditure on medicines.