Browsing by Author "Nyakubega, Peter"

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    The influence of mode of payment for healthcare on prescription patterns in public and private health facilities in Kinondoni Municipal, Dar es Salaam Tanzania
    (University of Dar es salaam, 2019) Nyakubega, Peter
    This study embarked on investigation of prescription patterns in public and private hospital in kinondoni Municipal; Dar es salaam, Tanzania as influenced by different modes of payment for health care. The study employed quantitative approach in data collection based on descriptive research design. The study employed systematic random sampling in which every tenth patient in the list of patient who were attended in the two referral hospitals ( Mwananyamala and Rabinisia) from January to June 2016, were selected for the study. The study found that prescription is significantly influenced by modes of payment with more items prescribed to insured patients than patients with no insurance. The patients under insurance have excessive prescriptions, and some of them are prescribed as many as 8(0.5%) items per prescription. Proportion of polypharmacy is significantly high in patients with insurance as compared to patients with other modes of payment such as exemption and out of pocket which have moderate polypharmacy. Patients under out of pocket and CHF miss medications at high proportions. Patients under insurance are given significantly high portion of generic prescription as compared to other modes of payment. This is attributed to controls instituted by insurance (NHIF in this case) to dispense the medicines only in their generic names. Patients attended at public hospitals have high rate of polypharmacy than those who attended private hospital however in overall, prescriptions from private hospitals had more items prescribed compared to those from the public hospitals. It is therefore recommended that policy makers should redirect their strategies towards modes of payment which reduce financial risks in covering for healthcare as a means to universal health coverage strategy. In this case the mode which will cater for equity n health care is the presence of universal health insurance policy which will give prescribers equal prescription options to all patients.