摘要："Background: In many developing countries, a large proportion of the money spent on health care comes from the out-of-pocket expenditure of patients or their families. In India, Bangladesh and Nepal, for example, this proportion has been estimated to be 48–69%. Information on healthcare expenditure at the family or household level is important for the planning and management of health services. It is particularly relevant for health insurance agencies to estimate the amount of premium for initiating a universal health insurance system. Methodology: A Retrospective cross sectional community based study was conducted for a period of three months in UFPA of KBNIMS, Kalaburagi, Karnataka. The data on disease episodes and the health expenditure incurred was collected by household survey using a pre designed pre tested structured proforma by interview method. Results: A total of 2295 episodes of illness were recorded giving an overall prevalence of disease episodes as 99.6%. The mean expenditure per episode among all socio demographic factors was found to be Rs 563.8 with standard deviation of 43.15. Conclusion: The mean per episode expenditure on health is high in our study, so there is need for systems such as health insurance to protect the poor from high medical costs."
关键词：Disease episodes; health expenditure; urban population
