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      Public health services knowledge and utilization among immigrants in Greece: a cross-sectional study

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          Abstract

          Background

          During the 90s, Greece has been transformed to a host country for immigrants mostly from the Balkans and Eastern European Countries, who currently constitute approximately 9% of the total population. Despite the increasing number of the immigrants, little is known about their health status and their accessibility to healthcare services. This study aimed to explore the perceived barriers to access and utilization of healthcare services by immigrants in Greece.

          Methods

          A pilot cross-sectional study was conducted from January to April 2012 in Athens, Greece. The study population consisted of 191 immigrants who were living in Greece for less than 10 years. We developed a questionnaire that included information about sociodemographic characteristics, health status, public health services knowledge and utilization and difficulties in health services access. Statistical analysis included Pearson’s × 2 test, × 2 test for trend, Student’s t-test, analysis of variance and Pearson’s correlation coefficient.

          Results

          Only 20.4% of the participants reported that they had a good/very good degree of knowledge about public health services in Greece. A considerable percentage (62.3%) of the participants needed at least once to use health services but they could not afford it, during the last year, while 49.7% used public health services in the last 12 months in Greece. Among the most important problems were long waiting times in hospitals, difficulties in communication with health professionals and high cost of health care. Increased ability to speak Greek was associated with increased health services knowledge (p<0.001). Increased family monthly income was also associated with less difficulties in accessing health services (p<0.001).

          Conclusions

          The empowerment and facilitation of health care access for immigrants in Greece is necessary. Depending on the needs of the migrant population, simple measures such as comprehensive information regarding the available health services and the terms for accessibility is an important step towards enabling better access to needed services.

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          Most cited references34

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          Effects of limited English proficiency and physician language on health care comprehension.

          To determine the effect of limited English proficiency on medical comprehension in the presence and absence of language-concordant physicians. A telephone survey of 1,200 Californians was conducted in 11 languages. The survey included 4 items on medical comprehension: problems understanding a medical situation, confusion about medication use, trouble understanding labels on medication, and bad reactions to medications. Respondents were also asked about English proficiency and whether their physicians spoke their native language. We analyzed the relationship between English proficiency and medical comprehension using multivariate logistic regression. We also performed a stratified analysis to explore the effect of physician language concordance on comprehension. Forty-nine percent of the 1,200 respondents were defined as limited English proficient (LEP). Limited English-proficient respondents were more likely than English-proficient respondents to report problems understanding a medical situation (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 3.2/confidence interval [CI] 2.1, 4.8), trouble understanding labels (AOR 1.5/CI 1.0, 2.3), and bad reactions (AOR 2.3/CI 1.3, 4.4). Among respondents with language-concordant physicians, LEP respondents were more likely to have problems understanding a medical situation (AOR 2.2/CI 1.2, 3.9). Among those with language-discordant physicians, LEP respondents were more likely to report problems understanding a medical situation (AOR 9.4/CI 3.7, 23.8), trouble understanding labels (AOR 4.2/CI 1.7, 10.3), and bad medication reactions (AOR 4.1/CI 1.2, 14.7). Limited English proficiency is a barrier to medical comprehension and increases the risk of adverse medication reactions. Access to language-concordant physicians substantially mitigates but does not eliminate language barriers.
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            Immigration and the health of Asian and Pacific Islander adults in the United States.

            The authors used the 1992-1995 National Health Interview Survey to examine the effect of immigrant status (both nativity and duration of residence in the United States) on the health of Asian and Pacific Islander adults by constructing models in which national origin was also specified. In logistic regression models adjusted for age, marital status, living arrangement, family size, and several socioeconomic indicators, immigrants were found to be in better health than their US-born counterparts, but their health advantages consistently decreased with duration of residence. For example, for Asian and Pacific Islander immigrants whose duration of residence was less than 5 years, 5-9 years, and 10 years or more, the odds ratios for activity limitations were 0.45 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.33, 0.62), 0.65 (95% CI: 0.46, 0.93), and 0.73 (95% CI: 0.60, 0.90), respectively. Similar findings emerged for respondent-reported health and bed days due to illness. These results support the validity and complementarity of the migration selectivity and acculturation hypotheses. However, the picture was not uniformly positive. The health of certain Asian and Pacific Islander groups, notably Pacific Islanders and Vietnamese, was found to be less favorable than average. Finally, after adjustment for health status, immigrants seemed to have less adequate access to formal medical care.
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              Reported health, lifestyles, and use of health care of first generation immigrants in The Netherlands: do socioeconomic factors explain their adverse position?

              Differences in health, lifestyles, and use of health care between groups of varying ethnic origin can have important implications for preventive and curative health care. This paper studies whether socioeconomic factors explain ethnic differences in these outcomes. Data on health status, lifestyles, and use of health care were obtained from interviews with 3296 people aged 16-64 years (response: 60.6%), among whom were 848 first generation immigrants. Ethnic differences in these outcomes were examined with and without adjustment for socioeconomic factors, using logistic regression. General population of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Health status (self rated health, General Health Questionnaire, functional limitations), lifestyles (smoking, alcohol), and use of health care (general practice, pharmaceuticals, hospitalisations). Immigrants from Turkey, Morocco and (former) Dutch colonies report a poorer health and a higher use of health care, especially primary health care among the elderly. An adverse socioeconomic position partially explains the poor health of these immigrants. In turn, their poor health explains most of their higher use of health care. Cultural factors and poor living conditions seem to contribute to the poor health of immigrants, besides an adverse socioeconomic position. The pressure on various health services will increase in future because of the relatively high increase in immigrants' needs at older ages and their presently low mean age.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                BMC Health Serv Res
                BMC Health Serv Res
                BMC Health Services Research
                BioMed Central
                1472-6963
                2013
                13 September 2013
                : 13
                : 350
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Center for Health Services Management and Evaluation, Faculty of Nursing, University of Athens, Athens, Greece
                [2 ]Department of Public Health, Associate Professor, Faculty of Nursing, University of Athens, Athens, Greece
                [3 ]Department of Nursing, Alexandreio Technological Educational Institute, Thessaloniki, Greece
                [4 ]Faculty of Economic Sciences and Management, Open University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus
                [5 ]General Hospital of Kalamata, Messinia, Greece, Hellenic Open University, Patras, Greece
                [6 ]Center for Health Services Management and Evaluation, Faculty of Nursing, University of Athens, Athens, Greece
                [7 ]Emergency Department, Hippocratio Hospital of Athens, Athens, Greece
                Article
                1472-6963-13-350
                10.1186/1472-6963-13-350
                3847449
                24034077
                2c9ae4f0-1174-47cf-b900-118e20929a6f
                Copyright © 2013 Galanis et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

                This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                : 24 March 2013
                : 10 September 2013
                Categories
                Research Article

                Health & Social care
                access,greece,immigrants,knowledge,public health services
                Health & Social care
                access, greece, immigrants, knowledge, public health services

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