A recent study of Baltimore residents reveals that individuals' attitudes about the health care system are a significant determinant of how quickly they seek care. Those who mistrust the system are more likely to postpone care until they are sicker, which drives up the overall cost of treatment.
An excerpt from the article reads:
Researchers surveyed 401 Baltimore residents, the majority of whom
were black, about their attitudes toward the health care system,
including doctors, hospitals and insurance companies.
The
survey found that people who doubted the trustworthiness of the medical
care system were more likely to ignore medical advice, neglect to go to
follow-up appointments or to fill prescriptions. Patients who were
suspicious of the system were also more likely to admit to putting off
medical care that doctors told them was necessary.
The study will appear online in Health Services Research.
"Over
the last 15 years, the health care system has changed, and increasingly
patients' interactions are with the system, not just an individual
doctor," study author Thomas LaVeist, director of the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School
of Public Health, said in a release from the news service.
"We
found that persons who were more mistrustful of the health-care system
were more likely to delay needed care or postpone receiving care, even
when they perceived they needed it," LaVeist said.
Read the entire article
here.