Results of the study of citizens’ attitudes toward public health care and services / Монголын Анагаах Ухаан

ABSTRACT

Introduction@#Among the population of Mongolia, cardiovascular diseases (34.2%), cancer (24.3%), accidents and external causes (16.9%) are highly prevalent, and risk factors such as alcohol and tobacco use, unhealthy diet, lack of exercise have increased dramatically, and more than half of people aged 45-64, or 53.2% are at high risk of contracting non-communicable diseases. When comparing the demand for health care and services according to the level of healthcare institutions, it was determined that 70% of the demand is in the primary healthcare institution, 20% at the secondary level, and 10% at the tertiary level. Therefore, in order to prevent these diseases and provide health education to the population, it is necessary to study the attitude of the citizens who visit primary healthcare institutions about public health care and services.@*Material and Methods@#In this study, a cross-sectional research design was used to determine citizens’ attitudes toward public health care and services. In collecting data, a total of 291 people from each of Dornod and Khovd provinces, from the capital of provinces, and 3 soums were included in the target sampling method. When evaluating the attitudes of the respondents, they were rated on a scale of 1-5 for each question. The SPSS-20 software was used to analyze the data.@*Ethics@#The methodology was approved by the Medical Ethics Sub-Committee of the Ach medical university on the 30th of June, 2022 (Decision #22/05/04).@*Results@#51% (148) of respondents rated their health status as good and 42.1% (122) rated it as moderate, and 57.6% (167) of all respondents answered that they visit the primary health center when they have symptoms. Also, the status of visiting a primary health center for prevention is better in the following groups 45-54 age group, among people with complete secondary and higher education, and soum healthcare center. </br>The attitudes of the participants towards public health care and services were evaluated in 4 groups, which are the demand for organizing preventive measures, the dependence of health on the individual, and the dependence of health on social and economic conditions, with an average of 4 points which means the demand is great. In addition, the healthcare institution’s organization of measures to promote and prevent the health of citizens is an average of 3.87 points, and the general score of the respondents’ attitude is 3.98 points, which indicates that there is a great demand for public health care and services. @*Conclusions@#Despite the low number of visits to primary health centers for preventive purposes among the respondents, attitudes toward public health care and services were good.