Impact of financial barriers on health status, healthcare utilisation and economic burden among individuals with cognitive impairment: a national cross-sectional survey

Objective: To study the impact of financial barriers to healthcare on health status, healthcare utilisation and costs among patients with cognitive impairment.

Design: Cross-sectional.

Setting: National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), 2011-2017.

Participants: Patients with cognitive impairment aged 18 years or older.

Interventions: Financial barriers to healthcare were identified using a series of NHIS prompts asking about the affordability of healthcare services.

Primary outcome measures: Health status was based on a survey prompt about respondents' general health. Healthcare utilisation included office visits, home healthcare visits, hospital stays and emergency department (ED) visits. Economic burden was based on the family spending on medical care. Logistic regression models were used to examine the impact of financial barriers to healthcare access on health status, home healthcare visits, office visits, hospital stays and ED visits, respectively.

Results: Compared with cognitively impaired respondents without financial barriers to healthcare access, those with financial barriers were more likely to be unhealthy (OR 0.64, 95% CI 0.57 to 0.72). Cognitively impaired respondents with financial barriers were less likely to have home healthcare (OR 0.69, 95% CI 0.48 to 0.99) and more likely to have hospital stays (OR 1.33, 95% CI 1.19 to 1.48) and ED visits (OR 1.50, 95% CI 1.35 to 1.67). In addition, compared with cognitively impaired respondents without financial barriers to healthcare access, those with the barriers were more likely to have an increased economic burden (OR=1.85, 95% CI 1.65 to 2.07).

Conclusion: Financial barriers to healthcare worsened health status and increased use of ED, hospitalisation and economic burden. Policy decision-makers, providers and individuals with cognitive impairment should be aware of the impact of financial barriers and take corresponding actions to reduce the impact.