TY - JOUR AU - Vuong, Quan- Hoang PY - 2016/09/30 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Empirical probabilities of (non)optimal healthcare choice conditional on socio-economic status and time consumption JF - Indian Journal of Community Health JA - Indian J Community Health VL - 28 IS - 3 SE - Short Article DO - UR - http://www.iapsmupuk.org/journal/index.php/IJCH/article/view/689 SP - 286-290 AB - <p><strong>Background:</strong>&nbsp;Patients need healthcare information for making decisions in choosing health service provider, but data sufficiency and quality are major obstacles. Non-optimal decisions are common. The problem persists even with the growing power of the Internet and ICT-based facilities. Asymmetric information exacerbates the economic inequality, worsening community health.&nbsp;<strong>Aims &amp; Objectives</strong>: The study reports results on existence of empirical relations between such factor as socioeconomic status, consumption of time and outcome of healthcare provider choice by Vietnamese patients.&nbsp;<strong>Material &amp; Methods</strong>: Cross-section data from a patient community survey spanning &gt;30 hospitals in Hanoi, during 2015 Q4-2016 Q1. Study sample contains 1459 observations. Main method used is baseline category logits regression.&nbsp;<strong>Results:</strong>&nbsp;Empirical relations among the above factors are confirmed. The rich possess advantages over the poor, with a &gt;63% probability of making an optimal choice. But two groups are not different with respect to wrong choice, with probabilities of making wrong choice for high- and low-SES patients, spending significant time for seeking information, being 13.6% and 15.1% respectively.&nbsp;<strong>Conclusion</strong>: a) Even for the rich with significant information the chance of choosing right healthcare provider is relatively low, 51%; b) Quality of information or information processing by healthcare consumers shows some problem.</p> ER -