Equity in the Perceived Quality of Care Received by Malaria Patients Under National Health Insurance Scheme in Ghana

Abstract

The Ghana National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) seeks to provide access to quality healthcare to its members regardless of the health facility in which they receive care. However, it is unclear if all members of the Scheme receive quality care. The objective of the study is to examine the equity of perceived healthcare quality received by NHIS members depending on the type of facility in which care was provided. The study purposively sampled 2000 NHIS members who sought malaria treatment in the study areas. Only patients who had visited the health facilities at least twice not more than 12 months, before the data collection, were sampled. The SERVQUAL model was used to examine perceived quality of healthcare services in 5 quality dimensions: Reliability, Assurance, Tangibility, Empathy, and Responsiveness. These quality dimensions were compared in health facilities according to ownership (public, private, and faith-based facilities), capacity (hospital vs health centers), and finally location (urban vs rural health facilities). Instrumental variable estimation method was used to analyze data to address health facility selection bias problem. The results showed that faith-based health facilities scored the highest in all 5 perceived quality dimensions followed by public and private. Hospitals had higher score in perceived quality than health centers just as urban facilities scored higher in quality than rural facilities. These results represent high inequality in the perceived quality of care received by NHIS members.