ABSTRACT
Objective:To investigate the affordability of chronic diseases and drug use in families three prov-inces in western China. Methods: Questionnaire survey was conducted in 6 cities in 3 west provinces of China—Guangxi,Shanxi and Sichuan. In each province,one provincial capital city and one medium-sized city were select-ed. 2 community health service centers,2 secondary hospitals and 2 tertiary hospitals were selected from each city as the survey sites. Questionnaire was designed and pre-tested in advance,and delivered to sample patients'families in survey sites by face-to-face interview. Results:Totally 900 questionnaires were sent out,and 838 were effectively re-ceived with effective recovery of 93.11%. 97.85% of patients participated in various medical insurance. The aver-age health expenditure of households was 1 364.84 yuan per month and accounted for 37.43% of the total expendi-ture;chronic diseases expenditure was 700.34 yuan per month and accounted for 51.31% of the total health expend-iture. The average monthly drug expenditure was 628.74 yuan and represented 16.73% of the total household ex-penditure. Surveyed family members mainly suffered from chronic diseases,hypertension and diabetes,and the heav-iest disease burden in families came from ischemic heart disease and chronic kidney disease. Different provinces, provincial capitals and non-provincial cities,and different levels of medical institutions have a greater difference in drug burden. Patients have experienced the effect of medical reform,but not familiar with the specific health care reform poli-cies. Conclusions and Suggestions:The surveyed patients'families were basically involved in the Medicare,but the burden of family medication for patients with chronic diseases was still heavy. Therefore,government should take further measures to improve the proportion of chronic diseases outpatient and reduce the burden of medication costs.