A survey on health service needs and utilization in military members

    GAO Hongª²Wei, XU He, ZHANG Luoª²Man

    1Department of Epidemiology, 2Department of Health Statistics, Faculty of Health Services, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China

    ¡¾Abstract¡¿ AIM: To study the basic situation and character of the health services needs and utilization in military members in southern China. METHODS: Multistage stratified cluster random sampling was conducted and a total of 2100 military members in the southern regions of China were sampled. Survey data were analyzed by SPSS 11.0 software package. RESULTS: The twoª²week illness prevalence and sixª²month chronic illness prevalence of the officer were significantly higher than those of the soldier (¦Ö22 wk=17.79, P<0.01£»¦Ö2CI=63.64, P<0.01). Respiratory system disease was the main problem in twoª²week illness prevalence and digestive system disease was the main problem in chronic illness prevalence. There was significantly difference between the officer and the soldier in the rate of no clinic visits within two weeks(¦Ö2=11.38, P<0.01). The number of officers with hospital admission within twelve months was significantly higher than that of the soldiers (¦Ö2=10.50, P<0.01). CONCLUSION: Military members have higher health service needs and better utilization, compared with those of citizens. Health education in military members should be strengthened and more attention should be paid to the prevention of training injuries as well as the prevention of common diseases. ......