Comparison of perceived quality amongst migrant and local patients using primary health care delivered by community health centres in Shenzhen, China.
BACKGROUND
Providing good quality primary health care to all inhabitants is one of the Chinese Government's health care objectives. However, information is scarce regarding the difference in quality of primary health care delivered to migrants and local residents respectively. This study aimed to compare patients' perceptions of quality of primary health care between migrants and local patients, and their willingness to use and recommend primary health care to others.


METHODS
A cross-sectional survey was conducted. 787 patients in total were chosen from four randomly drawn Community Health Centers (CHCs) for interviews.


RESULTS
Local residents scored higher than migrants in terms of their satisfaction with types of drugs available (3.62 vs. 3.45, p=0.035), attitude of health workers (4.41 vs. 4.14, p=0.042) and waiting time (4.30 vs. 3.86, p<0.001). Even though there was no significant difference in overall satisfaction between local residents and migrants (4.16 vs. 3.91, p=0.159), migrants were more likely to utilize primary health care as the first choice for their usual health problems (94.1% vs. 87.1%, p=0.032), while local residents were more inclined to recommend Traditional Chinese Medicine to others (65.6% vs. 56.6%, p=0.026).


CONCLUSIONS
Quality of primary health care given to migrants is less satisfactory than to local residents in terms of attitude of health workers and waiting time. Our study suggests quality of care could be improved through extending opening hours of CHCs and strengthening professional ethics education. Considering CHCs as the first choice by migrants might be due to their health insurance scheme, while locals' recommendations for traditional Chinese medicine were possibly because of cultural differences.
Haitao
H
Li
Roger Yat-Nork
RY
Chung
School of Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, SAR, China. xiaolinwei@cuhk.edu.hk.
Xiaolin
X
Wei
Jin
J
Mou
Samuel Yeung-Shan
SY
Wong
Martin Chi-Sang
MC
Wong
Dan
D
Zhang
Yingji
Y
Zhang
Sian
S
Griffiths
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002681:China; D003151:Community Health Centers / Q000592:standards*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D014171:Transients and Migrants; D014850:Waiting Lists