Abstract
Objectives
The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors influencing the occurrence of medical insurance opportunistic behavior among the public in Northeast China and its importance ranking.
Methods
Data are from a self-administered anonymous questionnaire survey of participants in Northeast China conducted from January to December 2019. Using a stratified sampling method, a sample of 895 residents aged 18 years or older was selected for the study and analysis. We used a stepwise logistic regression model to analyze the factors influencing the opportunistic behavior of the public within the medical insurance domain and standardized the coefficients of the independent variables in the model to further determine the degree of importance of the relevant influencing factors.
Results
Opportunistic behavior was found in 34.2% of the participants. The order of importance of the factors influencing participants’ opportunistic behavior were the frequency of occurrence of overmedication by medical practitioners, age, participants’ evaluation of the harm of opportunistic behavior in medical insurance, marital status, participants’ evaluation of the nature of opportunistic behavior in medical insurance, and participants’ evaluation of the prevalence of opportunistic behavior in medical insurance.
Conclusion
One-third of the participants in northeastern China engage in medical insurance opportunistic behavior. Among them, the frequency of occurrence of overmedication by medical practitioners is the most important factor influencing whether opportunistic behavior occurs.
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Availability of data and materials
The summary datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are not publicly available because the datasets are currently used for another project, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request under the data transfer agreement.
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Funding
This study was funded by the National Natural Scientific Fund of China (72074064, 71573068), China Postdoctoral Fund (2019M650068, 2018T110319), and the National Social Science Fund of China (19AZD013). The funding body had no influence on study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, or writing the manuscript.
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QS took overall responsibility for the study design. FD, JH, and GT were responsible for data analysis and manuscript writing. TZ and HZ applied and obtained the research data. JL and JX helped with data interpretation and manuscript writing. FC and QW made the charts and participated in the manuscript revision. All authors critically reviewed and revised the manuscript, and approved the final manuscript.
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Ethical approval for the study protocol was obtained from the Ethics Committee of Harbin Medical University. Informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to the start of the survey.
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Shi, Q., Zhang, H., Tian, G. et al. Factors influencing public opportunistic behavior in the medical insurance field: an empirical study from Northeast China. J Public Health (Berl.) (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-023-01914-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-023-01914-4