LAUSR

Objective: To understand medical treatment seeking behaviors and its influencing factors in employed floating population in China and provide evidence for the development of health service policies for floating population. Methods: Data were from the national chronic disease and risk factor surveillance (floating population part) in 2012. Floating population were selected through multistage clustering sampling stratified by industries in 170 counties and districts from 31 provinces (autonomous regions, municipality directly under the central government) and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps in the mainland of China. Information on demographic basic information, health status and health seeking behaviors six months before the investigation were collected through face-to-face questionnaire interview. The people aged 18-59 who had physical discomfort in the past six months was analyzed. After complex weighted analysis, multinomial logistic regression model was used to analyze the health seeking behavior and its influencing factors in the employed floating population. Results: A total of 11 134 suitable people aged 18-59 years were included in the study. The number and proportion of the people seeking medical treatment, having self-treatment and having no treatment were 4 950 (44.5%), 3 880 (34.8%) and 2 304 (20.7%), respectively. Multinomial logistic regression analysis showed that women were 1.275 times (95%CI: 1.100-1.477) more likely to seek medical treatment compared with men. The medical treatment seeking rates of floating population in the eastern, central and western areas were 2.153 times (95%CI: 1.669-2.777), 2.310 times (95%CI:1.777-3.002), 2.177 times (95%CI: 1.695-2.796) higher than that of floating population in northeastern area. In terms of seeking treatment, the proportion of the floating population with annual income of more than 25 000 yuan was 1.255 times (95%CI: 1.088-1.448) higher than that of the floating population with annual income of 25 000 yuan or less than 25 000 yuan. The proportion of the floating population with severe physical discomfort within the past six months was 8.076 times (95%CI: 6.091-10.707) higher than that of the floating population without severe physical discomfort and the proportion of the floating population who participated in medical insurance in both original living places and current living places was 1.566 times (95%CI: 1.250-1.961) higher than that of the floating population who did not participate in medical insurance in two places. The incidence ratio of medical care seeking and self-treatment in new generation of floating population was 1.369 (95%CI: 1.157-1.619) and 1.240 (95%CI: 1.042-1.475) compared with old generation of floating population. Compared with the widowed/divorced/separated, the incidence ratio of medical treatment seeking and self-treatment for the married/cohabited was 1.590 (95%CI: 1.057-2.391) and 1.815 (95%CI: 1.209-2.725). The more severe physical discomfort, the higher level medical institutions they chose (P<0.05). Conclusions: The treatment rate in medical institutions of employed floating population was low in China. Gender, generation of floating population, marital status, area, annual income, severity of physical discomfort in past six months and the way to participate in medical insurance were the main factors affecting the medical treatment seeking behaviors of employed floating population.