Determining households exposure to catastrophic health expenditures and exploring its influential factors in Kerman province

The main objective of an efficient financing system is to provide sufficient resources to ensure population access to public and personal health services in a way not to move people toward poverty due to inability to pay. One of the indicators of contribution in financing is the percent of households exposed to catastrophic health expenditures (CHE). The objective of the present study is measuring this indicator in kerman province and identifying its influential factors. Present descriptive-analytical study was carried out using retrospective data. Study population consisted of all households living in Kerman province in 2008. Research sample consisted of 1480 households. Sampling method was systematic randomized which is carried out seasonally by Iran’s Statistics center separately for urban and rural areas. Data was extracted from 2008 households’ expenditure and income survey. Households whose financial contribution in health system was above% 40 of their residual income after paying for subsistence expenditures were regarded as households with catastrophic expenditures. In order to explore factors effective on CHE incidence, Chi square test and logistic regression was applied. Excel and Spss19 were applied for data analysis, significance level was regarded at 95 percent. %4.1 of households were exposed to catastrophic health expenditures. Urban households were exposed to CHE 1.5 times more than their rural counterparts. CHE exposure had significant relationship with health services utilization particularly inpatient, outpatient and dental care services(p≥0.05). Consuming dental services, inpatient and outpatient services (radiology, sonography, radiotherapy, echocardiography, MRI, exercise test, EKG and etc.) increases the probability of exposure to catastrophic health expenditures. Findings of this study have provided health policy makers and planners with insight on characteristics and factors which make households more vulnerable to health expenditures.