Assessing service providers’ satisfaction with the chronic diseases package provided through the National Health Insurance Fund in Sudan

Abstract

Background: The prevalence and burden of chronic diseases is growing significantly with direct impact on health and financial security of population. In Sudan, there is a continuous effort to improve access for good and integrated health services but still the utilization of these services is low. Therefore, there is an urgent need to assess the availability and integration of benefit package to ensure better and effective coverage of services.Aim: This is a descriptive cross sectional based study aimed to assess the opinion of service providers about the chronic diseases package provided through the national health insurance fund.Methods: Form390 participating, data was collected via closed ended standardized questionnaires. Pre testing was done to ensure quality survey instruments and fieldwork procedures were conducted. A structured questionnaire with closed-ended questions was developed based on literature and previous studies. The questionnaire made up of 30 questions and organized in the following sections: background characteristics, medical characteristics, health professionals’ knowledge and practice related to NHIF ’chronic diseases package and perception about NHIF ‘chronic diseases package.Results: Our results showed that despite the existence of a number of issues, the National Health Insurance Fund is rather accepted amongst our respondents. Issues manifested were in regards to health education and supply issues of drugs. Conclusion: Our study concluded that, there is an obvious weakness in both training of providers and implementation of national protocols for chronic diseases. Moreover, despite the challenges of drug availability, 70% of our participants expressed positivity when questioned about the presentation of the drug package, bearing in mind the importance of reviewing the list to ensure its inclusion of new items. There is a need for training medical providers about chronic diseases with more focusing on health promotion and application of national guidelines. Additionally, integration of chronic diseases services in necessary for achieving universal health coverage.
 Keywords: national protocols for chronic diseases, national health insurance fund, health promotion