Socioeconomic Differences in and Predictors of Home-Based Palliative Care Health Service Use in Ontario, Canada

Jiaoli Cai, Denise N. Guerriere, Hongzhong Zhao and Peter C. Coyte
Additional contact information
Jiaoli Cai: School of Economics, Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, Wuhan 430070, Hubei, China
Denise N. Guerriere: Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Health Sciences Building, 155 College Street, Suite 425, Toronto, ON M5T 3M6, Canada
Hongzhong Zhao: School of Economics, Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, Wuhan 430070, Hubei, China
Peter C. Coyte: Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Health Sciences Building, 155 College Street, Suite 425, Toronto, ON M5T 3M6, Canada

IJERPH, 2017, vol. 14, issue 7, 1-12

Abstract: The use of health services may vary across people with different socioeconomic statuses, and may be determined by many factors. The purposes of this study were (i) to examine the socioeconomic differences in the propensity and intensity of use for three main home-based health services, that is, home-based palliative care physician visits, nurse visits and personal support worker (PSW) hours; and (ii) to explore the determinants of the use of home-based palliative care services. A prospective cohort study was employed. A total of 181 caregivers were interviewed biweekly over the course of the palliative care trajectory, yielding a total of 994 interviews. The propensity and intensity of health service use were examined using logistic regression and negative binomial regression, respectively. The results demonstrated that both the propensity and intensity of home-based nurse and PSW visits fell with socioeconomic status. The use of home-based palliative care services was not concentrated in high socioeconomic status groups. The common predictors of health service use in the three service categories were patient age, the Palliative Performance Scale (PPS) score and place of death. These findings may assist health service planners in the appropriate allocation of resources and service packages to meet the complex needs of palliative care populations.

Keywords: Canada; home-based care; socioeconomic difference; health service use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/7/802/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/7/802/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:14:y:2017:i:7:p:802-:d:105001

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().