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Kim, Park, and Kim: Married Immigrant Women's Utilization of Health Care and Needs of Health Services
Original Article

Journal of Korean Academy of Community Health Nursing 2011; 22(3): 333-341.

Published online: 4 April 2014

DOI: https://doi.org/10.12799/jkachn.2011.22.3.333

Married Immigrant Women's Utilization of Health Care and Needs of Health Services

Chunmi Kim1, Myung Sook Park2, Eun Man Kim1

1Associate Professor, Department of Nursing, Sunmoon University, Korea.

2Assistant Professor, Department of Nursing, Sunmoon University, Korea.

Address reprint requests to: Kim, Eun Man, Department of Nursing, Sunmoon University, 100 Kalsan-ri, Tangjeong-myeon, Asan 336-708, Korea. Tel: 82-41-530-2756, Fax: 82-41-530-2767, emkim@sunmoon.ac.kr

Received 15 July 2011       Revised 19 September 2011       Accepted 20 September 2011

© 2011 Korean Academy of Community Health Nursing

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to analyze married immigrant women's utilization of health care and their demand for public health care services.

Methods

This study was conducted through descriptive survey with 102 married immigrant women in 2 cities, and survey was done from November, 2010 to May, 2011.

Results

The results were as follows. Of respondents, 70% were using medical services in Korea and only 38.2% of them were satisfied with services. Major difficulties in using health care services were 'access problem' (35.7%), 'communication problem' (27.7%), and 'medical cost' (19.8%). The respondents' main sources of health information were family (56%), health care center (15%). The types of health information and education demanded by respondents were children's health care (22.1%), pregnancy and delivery (21.1%), and common disease care (20.0%). The most wanted services from public health care institutions were vaccination (24.5%), health promotion (21.5%), and leisure activity programs (20.6%). There was a statistically significant difference in period of immigration and public health care demands.

Conclusion

For married female immigrants, it is recommended to provide tailored public health care services such as outreach service and visiting nursing care service, and to set up different language signs for common disease patients.

Keywords: Immigrant, Health services needs

Figures and Tables

Table 1
General Characteristics of Subjects
jkachn-22-333-i001

†Japan, Thailand, Mongolia, Cambodia.

Table 2
Experience of Health Care Services
jkachn-22-333-i002

†Cases with duplicated responses were included.

Table 3
Needs for Health Information and Public Health Service
jkachn-22-333-i003
Table 4
Inconvenient Factor of Health Care Utilization and Related Factors of Subjects
jkachn-22-333-i004

CP=communication problem; TCU=too complicated to use.

Table 5
Needs for Public Health Service and Related Factors of Subjects
jkachn-22-333-i005

HP=health promotion; PHC=primary health care; LA=leisure activity; MHC=mental health counselling.

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