Are family medicine centres achieving their target in Turkey: Impact on health care utilization of mothers and infants


Aygün A.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HEALTH PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT, cilt.36, sa.1, ss.189-208, 2021 (SSCI) identifier identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 36 Sayı: 1
  • Basım Tarihi: 2021
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1002/hpm.3079
  • Dergi Adı: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HEALTH PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, ASSIA, Agricultural & Environmental Science Database, Business Source Elite, Business Source Premier, CAB Abstracts, CINAHL, EMBASE, Geobase, MEDLINE, PAIS International, Sociological abstracts
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.189-208
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: family medicine, health access, method of birth control, postnatal care, prenatal care, primary care, Turkey
  • İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

The family medicine (FM) system was introduced as the main source of primary care in Turkey as a component of the Health Transformation Program reforms. During a gradual implementation process, provinces switched to the FM system at different points in time between 2005 and 2010. In this paper, we use a micro-level data set to test whether the health care utilization of mothers during pregnancy, childbirth and the postnatal period is affected by the program. Using a difference-in-differences method for estimation, we find that the program is only effective for pregnant women who lived in provinces with a limited availability of specialist doctors. As a result of the FM program, women are likely to have their first prenatal consultancy earlier and their probability of seeing a doctor during their prenatal visit and receiving an ultrasound and blood and urine sample checks increases if they live in a province with a low number of specialists per 10,000 people. We find that the impact of the FM program decreases as the rate of specialists in a province increases, which negates any positive effect of the program on health care use.