Out of Pocket Expenditure among Animal Bite Patients Attending a Tertiary Care Hospital for Treatment in Rajasthan

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Rabies is an infectious viral disease that isalmost always fatal. It is present on all continents, exceptAntarctica, with over 95% of human deaths occurring in theAsia and Africa regions. Treating a rabies exposure, wherethe average cost of rabies post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) isUS$ 40 in Africa, and US$ 49 in Asia, can be a catastrophicfinancial burden on affected families whose average dailyincome is around US$ 1–2 per person. Study was conductedwith the objectives to analyse the direct and indirect out ofpocket expenditure of the post exposure prophylaxis ofanimal bites in spite of free supply of anti-rabies vaccine andimmunoglobulin.Material and methods: A cross sectional observational studywas carried out at Anti Rabies Clinic, SMS Hospital Jaipur,Rajasthan from October 2018 to March 2019 to know out ofpocket expenditure of animal bite patients and its determinants.Prior approval from institutional ethics committee andinformed consent were taken and a pre-designed, pre-testedproforma was filled from the persons attending anti rabiesclinic on last visit of post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP). Apartfrom socio-demographic details, information about director indirect out of pocket expenditure due to animal bite wasrecorded and analysis was done using chi square test, ANOVAtest, ‘t’-test and univariate and multivariate regression.Results: Total out of pocket expenditure by 81 studied patientswas Rs. 53201.00, out of which 91.69% i.e. Rs. 48780.00 wereindirect expenses and 5.04% i.e. Rs. 2681.00 was expenditureon medical and surgical management including registrationand consumables. Only 3.27% i.e. Rs. 1740.00 was on postexposure anti-rabies prophylaxis of 81 patients. Mean out ofpocket expenditure was Rs. 656.80±1387.76 ranging from Rs.0.00 to Rs. 8550.00 per patient with median of Rs. 290.00.Conclusion: Despite free supply of anti-rabies vaccine andanti-rabies serum under Mukhyamantri Nishulk Dava Yojna(MNDY) the indirect out of pocket expenditure in animal bitetreatment is still high, which should draw attention for policymakers.