Table 2.
Descriptive table of financial costs, time costs, total costs and financial distress
| Financial and time costs (per month) | Pre-ART N=200 Mean (SD) |
ART N=300 Mean (SD) |
TB N=296 Mean (SD) |
p-value‡ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Costs associated with visits to HIV/TB clinic (ZAR/month) | ||||
| Transport costs (return trip) | 5.0 (6.8) | 36.9 (67.4) | 24.4 (29.4) | <0.001 |
| Non-transport costs | 2.7 (3.8) | 9.4 (11.7) | 8.2 (36.1) | 0.004 |
| Subtotal | 7.6 (8.5) | 46.4 (71.8) | 32.7 (52.0) | <0.001 |
| Costs incurred for use of other healthcare services (ZAR/month) | ||||
| Chemist or pharmacy | 17.4 (81.9) | 0.8 (4.7) | 2.0 (16.6) | <0.001 |
| Public clinic | 0.8 (10.6) | 0.7 (8.1) | 0.7 (10.8) | 0.999 |
| A private doctor | 30.2 (77.7) | 23.4 (82.8) | 15.5 (55.3) | 0.081 |
| A traditional healer | 29.1 (117.1) | 0.2 (3.0) | 1.5 (14.9) | <0.001 |
| Public hospital | 1.0 (7.8) | 0.4 (4.0) | 0.0 (0.0) | 0.053 |
| Private hospital | 0.1 (1.4) | 0.0 (0.0) | 0.1 (1.2) | 0.520 |
| Self-care-traditional medicines, spaza shops, special foods | 84.5 (141.2) | 91.7 (153.0) | 69.8 (118.5) | 0.145 |
| Subtotal | 163.1 (262.5) | 117.3 (181.3) | 89.5 (139.8) | <0.001 |
| Total financial costs | 170.7 (262.9) | 163.7 (204.0) | 122.2 (154.7) | 0.012 |
| Time costs (hours/month) | ||||
| Time spent at clinic | 1.2 (0.7) | 2.8 (2.0) | 1.1 (1.3) | <0.001 |
| Time spent travelling | 2.2 (1.8) | 2.2 (1.8) | 2.0 (1.5) | 0.105 |
| Total (hours/month) | 3.4 (0.7) | 5.0 (2.8) | 3.1 (2.0) | <0.001 |
| Total monetized time costs (ZAR/month) | 59.2 (12.7) | 87.1 (49.4) | 54.7 (35.2) | <0.001 |
| Total financial + monetized time costs (ZAR) | 230.2 (262.7) | 250.7 (218.5) | 177.0 (158.5) | <0.001 |
| Financing health expenditure (% yes) | ||||
| Borrowed money | 29 (22–35) | 36 (31–42) | 39 (33–45) | 0.054¥ |
| Sold assets§ | 5 (2–7) | 8 (5–11) | 6 (3–9) | 0.365¥ |
| Borrowed money OR sold assets to pay for healthcare† | 31 (24–37) | 39 (34–45) | 41 (35–47) | 0.051¥ |
*
Time spent at clinic for pre-ART patients was divided by 3 to allow for the number of visits for pre-ART patients; for ART and TB patients their visits are monthly.
**
Time cost were calculated as time spent per-visit or time travelling multiplied by ZAR 17.49.
Sample was §282 and †296 for ART patients due to missing data.
¥
p-value based on Pearson’s χ2 test for differences in proportions across patient groups.
‡
p-value based on F statistic test for differences in means across patient groups.
ZAR = South African Rand, ART = antiretroviral treatment, TB = tuberculosis, SD = standard deviation.