Skip to main content

Table 5 Matrix of unmet healthcare needs

From: Measurement of unmet healthcare needs to assess progress on universal health coverage - exploring a novel approach based on household surveys

 

Unmet Healthcare Needs

When health care needs were perceived as such

When healthcare needs were unperceived

Usually recognised as unmet needs:

Treatment not received at all: Examples

¬ 12.75% of people suffering from acute ailments in the last 15 days did not take treatment at all.

¬ 18.40% of people having chronic conditions did not take treatment

Latent diseases: Examples

¬ In terms of preventive healthcare needs, 47.42% of individual (30 years or above age) never had their blood pressure measured before in their lifetime. Similarly, 72.17% never had their blood glucose measured before.

¬ 95% of those identified with likelihood of depression had not sought any healthcare to get the diagnosis or treatment as they did not know they could be suffering from depression.

Measurable but often ignored as an unmet need:

Treatment taken from an unqualified informal provider:

¬ 27.83% of people suffering from acute ailments in the last 15 days took treatment from the informal provider.

¬ 9.06% of people having a chronic condition in the last 365 days took treatment from the informal provider.

Incomplete care:

¬ Patients suffering from chronic conditions discontinued medicine for an average of 6.06 months out of the past 12 months.

Difficult to measure and often ignored:

Inappropriate care by formal provider and the patient could report inappropriate care when asked

Inappropriate care by formal provider but the patient was unable to assess whether it was appropriate or not