Table 2.
Older adults’ health problems and utilisation of health services and medicines by type of health insurance (ENSANUT 2012)
| Health insurance (HI) |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| Social Security | Seguro Popular | Without HI | |
| Number of respondents | |||
| Unweighted | 8404 | 7256 | 3187 |
| Weighted | 5 156 870 | 3 106 183 | 1 789 322 |
| % | 51.3 (49.6, 53.0) | 30.9 (29.5, 32.3) | 17.8 (16.7, 18.8) |
| Health problems | Weighted % | Weighted % | Weighted % |
| Physical and/or mental limitations for: | 36.7 (34.9, 38.6) | 39.6 (37.6, 41.7) | 33.5 (31.1, 36.0) |
| Sight, even when wearing glasses* | 13.7 (12.5, 15.0) | 17.1 (15.7, 18.5) | 12.4 (10.9, 14.2) |
| Hearing, even when using a hearing aid* | 8.2 (7.4, 9.0) | 9.5 (8.8, 10.5) | 7.2 (6.2, 8.3) |
| Walking, moving and climbing stairs* | 27.4 (25.8, 29.0) | 29.0 (27.3, 30.8) | 23.9 (21.8, 26.1) |
| Dressing, bathing or eating | 4.1 (3.6, 4.7) | 4.5 (3.8, 5.2) | 3.7 (2.9, 4.8) |
| Speaking, communicating or conversing | 1.9 (1.5, 2.3) | 2.3 (1.8, 2.8) | 2.1 (1.5, 2.9) |
| Paying attention and learning simple things | 1.6 (1.3, 2.0) | 2.1 (1.7, 2.7) | 2.2 (1.6, 3.2) |
| Understanding what other people say* | 1.3 (1.0, 1.7) | 1.9 (1.5, 2.3) | 2.0 (1.5, 2.9) |
| Diagnosis of chronic disease in the last year* | 19.3 (17.9, 20.8) | 17.4 (15.9, 19.1) | 12.9 (11.2, 15.0) |
| Health problem that happened within 15 days before the survey* | 19.2 (17.8, 20.5) | 24.5 (23.0, 26.1) | 18.8 (16.9, 20.8) |
| Healthcare need* | 16.8 (15.6, 18.2) | 21.3 (19.8, 22.8) | 16.1 (14.4, 17.9) |
| †Type of health problem*: | |||
| Infectious diseases | 29.4 (26.4, 32.5) | 29.6 (26.8, 32.6) | 34.0 (29.0, 39.3) |
| Non-infectious diseases | 47.6 (44.1, 51.1) | 40.0 (36.5, 43.3) | 39.2 (33.7, 45.0) |
| Injury and/or poisoning | 6.2 (4.9, 7.9) | 6.1 (4.7, 7.9) | 6.5 (4.3, 9.6) |
| Other: symptoms, signs and abnormal findings | 16.8 (14.4, 19.5) | 24.3 (21.4, 27.5) | 20.3 (16.5, 24.7) |
| †Perception of severity of health problem: | |||
| Mild | 33.2 (30.1, 36.4) | 32.3 (29.3, 35.6) | 30.9 (26.2, 36.1) |
| Moderate | 33.7 (30.3, 37.4) | 30.8 (28.0, 33.8) | 30.8 (25.8, 36.3) |
| Severe | 33.1 (29.7, 36.5) | 36.9 (33.5, 40.1) | 38.3 (32.6, 44.3) |
| †Health services utilisation to resolve a health problem that happened within the past 15 days* | 78.4 (75.2, 81.2) | 60.2 (56.5, 63.8) | 55.3 (50.1, 60.4) |
| †Use of medicines within the past 15 days* | 87.8 (85.5, 90.1) | 79.1 (76.1, 81.8) | 78.9 (74.8, 82.5) |
| Hospitalisation within the last year* | 7.9 (7.0, 8.9) | 6.3 (5.6, 7.0) | 3.4 (2.6, 4.3) |
*p<0.05.
†For those older adults who reported having health problems within 15 days before the survey.