Our findings confirm the association of self-rated health with economic crisis and certain demographic and socio-economic factors. Given that the economic recession in Greece deepens, immediate and effective actions targeting health inequalities and improvements in health status are deemed necessary.

BackgroundThe programme for fiscal consolidation in Greece has led to income decrease and several changes in health policy. In this context, this study aims to assess how economic crisis affected unmet healthcare needs in Greece.MethodsTime series analysis was performed for the years 2004 through 2011 using the EU-SILC database. The dependent variable was the percentage of people who had medical needs but did not use healthcare services. Median income, unemployment and time period were used as independent variables. We also compared self-reported unmet healthcare needs drawn from a national survey conducted in pre-crisis 2006 with a similar survey from 2011 (after the onset of the crisis). A common questionnaire was used in both years to assess unmet healthcare needs, including year of survey, gender, age, health status, chronic disease, educational level, income, employment, health insurance status, and prefecture. The outcome of interest was unmet healthcare needs due to financial reasons. Ordinary least squares, as well as logistic regression analysis were conducted to analyze the results.ResultsUnmet healthcare needs increased after the enactment of austerity measures, while the year of participation in the survey was significantly associated with unmet healthcare needs. Income, educational level, employment status, and having insurance, private or public, were also significant determinants of unmet healthcare needs due to financial reasons.ConclusionsThe adverse economic environment has significantly affected unmet health needs. Therefore health policy actions and social policy measures are essential in order to mitigate the negative impact on access to healthcare services and health status.

Our findings suggest that Greek physicians could be persuaded to prescribe generic medicines, if a generic promotion policy was introduced in the country. To develop such a policy, a set of supply side and demand-side measures should be implemented along with provision of information on generics to physicians during their education and clinical practice.

ObjectivesTo investigate the magnitude of barriers in access to health services for chronic patients and the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics that affect them.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted in 1,594 chronic patients suffering from diabetes, hypertension, COPD and Alzheimer. Logistic regression analyses were carried out in order to explore the factors related to economic and geographical barriers in access, as well as the determinants of barriers due to waiting lists.ResultsA total of 25% of chronic patients face geographical barriers while 63.5% and 58.5% of them are in front of economic and waiting list barriers, respectively. Unemployed, low-income and low-educated are more likely to face economic barriers in access. Moreover, women, low-income patients, and patients with lower health status are more likely to be in front of geographical barriers. In addition, the probability of waiting lists occurrence is greater for unemployed, employees and low income patients.ConclusionsBarriers in access can be mainly attributed to income decrease and unemployment. In this context, health policy measures are essential for removing barriers in access. Otherwise, inequalities may increase and chronic patients’ health status will be deteriorated. These consequences imply adverse effects on health expenditure.