Shewa Negash Bedane*
Background: Hypertension like many chronic conditions require long term care, posing financial burden to the patients and their households. Even in countries with universal healthcare coverage, patients including those with chronic conditions can still incur substantial and increasing amounts of out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE).However, the OOPE burden of hypertension has not been studied in the Ethiopian context.
General objective: The objective of the study was to assess out of pocket expenditures among hypertensive patients and their households who visit public hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2016.
Methods: An institution based cross sectional study was conducted on 422 participants in public hospitals that provide care for hypertension in Addis Ababa city from September 01, 2016 to September 20, 2016. Structured questionnaires were used to collect the data. Then the data was entered and analyzed using the statistical package for social scientists version 20 (SPSS-20) and analyses were performed for household out of pocket expenditure that considered estimated direct and indirect out of pocket expenditure and household expenditure by using descriptive statistics.
Results: The study covered 422 hypertensive patients and revealed that the total out pocket expenditure was estimated at median 5279.50 (mean 7194.00) birr/month, household expenditure (households food and non-food expenditure) was significant which estimated at median 5148.50 (mean 5003.29) birr/month. The direct cost of hypertensive patient was estimated at median 283 (mean 290.74) birr/month.
Conclusion and recommendation: The average OOPE of hypertension to patients and their households were very high when compared with the mean monthly household income. Therefore further research ought to be done including economic consequence, catastrophic Health expenditure, impoverishments, coping mechanism and social resources of hypertension on patients and their households. Health Policymakers and health managers should prioritize the resources need for the hypertension prevention and control activities.