Saturday 15 June 2013

The economic burden of chronic disease care faced by households in Ukraine: a cross-sectional matching study of angina patients

Ajay Mahal

Out of pocket expenses for medications and treatment in the Ukraine are comparatively high.  When coupled with chronic non communicable diseases such as angina the effect on household incomes can be crippling.

Prof Ajay Mahal was one of a group of researchers who conducted a survey of angina sufferers in the Ukraine to determine the effect of out of pocket medical expenses on their household budgets. They estimated that 44.2% of households with an angina sufferer were likely to engage in “catastrophic spending”, i.e. greater than 40% of the household budget on out of pocket medical expenses.

As a result the researchers believed that many patients would not take the full course of their medication as it was unaffordable, or that they would sell possessions etc. to increase their funds.

This research presents the damaging effects of increased out of pocket expenses on the health and welfare of low and middle income households in the Ukraine.

(‘The economic burden of chronic disease care faced by households in Ukraine: a cross-sectional matching study of angina patients’: Murphy, A., Mahal, A., Richardson, E., Moran, A.E.  Intl Journal for Equity in Health; 12:38; doi: 10.1186/1475-9276-12-38).

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