background measures taken over the past four years in greece to reduce pharmaceutical expenditure have led to significant price reductions for medicines, but have also changed patient cost-sharing rates for prescription drugs. this study attempts to capture the resulting increase in patients’ out-of-pocket (oop) expenses for prescription drugs during the 2011-2014 period.   methods the authors ...

The school nurse has a crucial role in the seamless provision of comprehensive health services to children and youth. Increasing numbers of students enter schools with chronic health conditions that require management during the school day. This policy statement describes for pediatricians the role of the school nurse in serving as a team member in providing preventive services, early identific...

Based on a qualitative interview study conducted in eastern Nepal, this paper explores the quality of services received by people with leprosy and the impact of quality of services received on adherence behaviour. The study found that a person's status within the family and community influenced the quality of care, which in turn affected adherence to treatment. Five major types of deficiency in...

Background: Studies have shown that people using complementary health insurances have more access to health services than others. In the present study, we aimed at finding the differences between out- of- pocket payments and health service utilizations in complementary health insurances (CHIs) users and nonusers.    Methods:  Propensity score matching was used to compare the 2 g...

Background In the attempt to move towards universal health coverage (UHC), many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are actively seeking to contract-out non-state providers (NSPs) to deliver health services to a specified population. Research on contracting-out has focused more on the impact of contracting-out than on the actual processes underlying the intervention and contextual factors ...

BACKGROUND Patients' opinion regarding services has acquired great importance. Patient satisfaction is playing an increasingly important role in quality of care reforms and health-care delivery. The study aimed to measure patient satisfaction in a tertiary care hospital in order to know the patients' perspectives and expectations of the services and make appropriate improvements accordingly. ...

OBJECTIVE To describe the current situation of mental health care in Italy and implementation of mental health reform legislation. METHOD The current mental health care system and studies of the implementation of psychiatric reform are described. RESULTS The 1978 reform law inaugurated fundamental changes in the care system (prohibiting admissions to state mental hospitals, stipulating comm...

Psychiatric hospitals have been accused of being both ineffective institutions and the main parties responsible for the chronic status of the mentally ill. However, there is a lack of research on the influence of mental health care facilities on either the communities in which they are located or the nearby out-patient services. Their presence may be a cause for increased psychiatric demand. Th...