Assessing Health Care Utilisation Among The Elderly With Chronic Conditions In Ghana

ABSTRACT Background: The elderly are among the most vulnerable groups of people worldwide and are prone to chronic diseases such as hypertension, stroke, diabetes and cancers. The prevalence as well as associated risk factors of these chronic diseases have been observed to have increased over time in Ghana. Methods: This study used secondary data generated from the WHO Study on Global AGEing and Adult health (SAGE) in Ghana. Information on the elderly, defined as people with age of 60 years and above, with chronic conditions was extracted from the dataset and analysed using STATA Version12. Descriptive statistics as well as tests of association using Chisquare and multinomial logistic regression were conducted to measure the level of association between dependent and independent variables. Results: Of 830 people who met the case definition for elderly with chronic conditions in the dataset, national health insurance as well as level of education were significantly associated with healthcare utilisation. About half of the elderly (51.8%) were enrolled on the health insurance. In addition, out-of-pocket payments were significantly different among the types of facilities used. Conclusion: Results obtained from the study indicated that out-of-pocket payment, health insurance as well as level of education of the elderly were significantly associated with healthcare utilisation. Most of the elderly used public health facilities compared to over-thecounter and other facilities.