Role Of Mutual Health Schemes In Shaping Household Financial Accessibility Among Low-income Households In Kirinyaga County, Kenya

Mutual health schemes are emerging as an important cornerstone in healthcare financing in Kirinyaga County, where they are providing a patchwork of protection to low-income groups faced by low financial access to healthcare. While the schemes continue to gain ground, the extent to which they are improving health care utilization remains unclear because of weak evidence. Only a handful number of inquiries have been conducted, a paucity that underlined the objective of this study. The cross-sectional descriptive study investigated the role of MHS in healthcare utilisation. Data was collected from 308 randomly selected households with predocumented membership to schemes, with a researcher-administered questionnaire and indepth interview guide being the primary data collection devices. The data was analysed using SPSS version 23. Besides descriptive statistics, binary logistic regression was employed to explain the relationship between variables. Female respondents were the majority (59.1%), with the median age being 45.8 years. The overall household size among participants was small as each household had an average of 3.47 persons, with 72.1% noting they had formal education. The majority of respondents rated their health status as “good” (36.4%), “very good” (16.6%), or satisfactory (21.8%), as they could access prioritised care because of MHS membership.  According to the results, 261 participants (84.7%) sought medical attention during the most recent health episode. Overall, there were gender differences in seeking medical attention, where females were utilizing health services more frequently when compared to their male counterparts. However, the variations were minimal based on the size of the HH, schooling differentials, age, as well as income earners. The results also confirmed that 83.93% of respondents visited formal providers, confirming key informants’ concept of MHS providing motivational benefits to seek care from professionals. However, the logit model ((χ2 = 73.937; df= 2; p < .001) revealed that the scheme was less likely to help individuals cope when the payment was challenging. The logit model also confirmed varying influences of gender, age, the size of HH, education, and income in benefiting from schemes.