Page 79 - GHES-2-4

Global Health Economics and
Sustainability

ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE
Acceptability of the National Health Insurance

scheme and preferred benefit package among
civil servants in Rivers State, Nigeria

Foluke Olukemi Adeniji * and Chinonso Chukwudi Onyechi 2
1,2
1 Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Faculty of Clinical Sciences, College of Health
Sciences, University of Port Harcourt, Choba Rivers State, Nigeria
2 Department of Community Medicine, University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Choba Rivers
State, Nigeria

Abstract

Health-care insurance is one of the financial risk protection tools available to clients in
the health-care industry. In most developing countries, citizens are in favor of paying
for their health-care expenses out of pocket, a payment mode that potentially tips
these people into poverty. This study aims to determine the level of acceptance of
and the preferred benefit package available in the National Health Insurance Scheme
(NHIS) among civil servants in Rivers State, Nigeria. In this descriptive cross-sectional
study, respondents were selected through simple random sampling. The collected
data were cleaned and analyzed with Statistical Product and Service Solution
Academic editor: version 23. Out of the 351 respondents, male subjects accounted for the big majority
Mihajlo Jakovljevic M.D. Ph.D. MAE
of the sample (n = 208; 59.3%); only 30 (8.5%) had any form of health insurance; and
*Corresponding author: about two-thirds of the respondents, at around 223 (63.5%), expressed acceptance
Foluke Olukemi Adeniji
(foluke.adeniji@uniport.edu.ng) of using NHIS as a strategy for payment. The most preferred benefits package was
the one that covers all services 178 (50.7%). The poor and the poorest showed a
Citation: Adeniji, F.O. & Onyechi, preference for the health-care benefits package that covers all expenses, whereas
C.C. (2024). Acceptability of the
National Health Insurance scheme the rich showed a preference for services covering basic diseases. The overall
and preferred benefit package acceptability of the NHIS was statistically associated with socio-economic status
among civil servants in Rivers (p ≤ 0.05). Thus, the opinions of the consumers and their health needs must be taken
State, Nigeria. Global Health Econ
Sustain, 2(4):2909. into consideration when planning a health insurance benefits package.
https://doi.org/10.36922/ghes.2909
Received: February 9, 2024 Keywords: Acceptability; Health insurance; Benefit package; Health care
Accepted: May 6, 2024
Published Online: August 23, 2024
Copyright: © 2024 Author(s). 1. Introduction
This is an Open-Access article
distributed under the terms of the Globally, the health-care financing system is established to fund health-care services
Creative Commons Attribution so as to reduce the financial risk imposed on consumers by the burden of ill health. In
License, permitting distribution,
and reproduction in any medium, Nigeria, the sources of health-care financing include taxes, household out-of-pocket
provided the original work is health-care spending, private sector funding, community-based health financing, and
properly cited. the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) (Eboh et al., 2016). These revenues
Publisher’s Note: AccScience are then pooled and used to purchase goods and services from public and private
Publishing remains neutral with providers to cater to the identified population needs, such as capitation, fees for
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional service, budgeting, and salaries (Uzochukwu et al., 2015). After being established in
affiliations. 1999 by an act of legislation, the NHIS was introduced in 2005 in Nigeria to guarantee

Volume 2 Issue 4 (2024) 1 https://doi.org/10.36922/ghes.2909