KTX의 서울지역 의료기관 이용 영향에 대한 광주광역시 주민의 인식

Abstract

Background: Since Korean Train Express (KTX) of South Korea introduced high-speed commercial rail service on April 1, 2004, many issues have been raised in health care sector in Korea. One of the problems under discussing is that KTX may effect on the use of hospital service in Seoul. It is however still unclear to what extent KTX has increased the use of hospital services among community people who live in area outside of Seoul or whether the KTX has positive effects on the prevalence of hospital service use by them.

Objectives: This study was conducted to determine factors affecting utilization of hospital services in Seoul among Gwangju citizen. In addition to assessing their perception of KTX effects on hospital service use in Seoul by them.

Methods: A survey was conducted in Gwangju citizens who live in Gwangju metro city, Korea, from May 20 to May 30, 2011. The design of the study was descriptive cross-sectional, and data were collected using a 36-items questionnaire. The number of participants were three hundred sixty. Data were analyzed using 'SPSS Statistics 18.0 Network Version(on release 18.0.1 of PASW Statistics)' program. Various statistical methods were applied for analyzing the data to obtain a profile for the participants and to identify the Gwangju citizen's perception of KTX effects on hospital service use in Seoul. And this study identified factors which influence the use of citizen's preference for using the hospital services in Seoul. Logistic regression analysis was employed to determine the predicting variables of the hospital service use in Seoul.

Results: When Korea Train Express (KTX) has been in operation between Seoul and Gwangju, 81.8% of participants are willingness to use hospital services in Seoul. 88.2% of them have perceived that there is KTX effects on hospital service use in Seoul by Gwangju citizen. The factors influencing citizen's preference for using the hospital services in Seoul were gender, surgical disease, age, the level of income and the of health insurance. Predicting factors on the use of hospital services in Seoul were gender, surgical diseases, perceived effect of KTX.

Conclusions: Although this study found that Gwangju citizen perceived KTX effects on hospital service use in Seoul, many of them were dissatisfied with health services in Gwangju metro city, reflected the residents' view on health care service delivery system in the region. The residents' attitude towards hospital services in Gwangju may imply that the demand for higher quality and assessable services of citizens. Health authorities and health care providers in Gwangju should identify their demand and opinion and try to find and develop some measures to meet their demand for hospital services in community hospital.