The Study of Spending Factors of Households on Western & Chinese Medicine

• Main Authors: Shu -Chuan Hsieh, 謝淑娟
• Other Authors: Nai-Fong Kuo
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/yw3jh2

碩士 === 世新大學 === 財務金融學研究所(含碩專班) === 96 === With the better quality of life in Taiwan, taking healthy products as well as getting medicine from pharmacy has become a common way that people maintain their health. In Taiwan, there are several methods of seeking Medicine such as Western medicine, Chinese Herbs, Health Alternative Therapy and self medication. Most of the treatments of Chinese Traditional Medicine are provided in combination with Western orthodox medicine and they are regarded as mild and safe remedy; therefore, people think that it's unnecessary for their physicians to be informed that they are under the treatment of Chinese Herbs. In addition, physicians seldom check whether their patients take herbal medicines while patients are visiting them; thus patients might not take medicine in a proper way or they might fail to compliance with doctor's instruction. It can be seen obviously there are only a few researches which are relevant to behaviors of taking medicine. Therefore, this study investigates the characters of human being who follow Western medicine or Chinese medicine or both Western and Herbal medicine practices in order to understand the related factors that influence the behavior of people toward medicine taking decision. Apart from that, the change of consumptive expenditure for Taiwanese family is another aspect to look at, even though it mostly focuses on the main items of consumption or the health and medical care expenditure. The medicine expense is also an important part of health and medical care; hence in order to find out these issues as listed below: Will all families take both Herbal and Western medicine at the same time? Is there any demographic characteristics need Herbal prescription to obtain better health? We are going to conduct a research. The above are all the important issues that we will discuss in the dissertation. Data used in this research are drawn from the Survey of Family Income and Expenditure in 2006. The analysis was used the methods below such as descriptive statistics, t test, Anova and Bivariate Probit model through computer software SPSS and STATA to do the analysis and proof. Main Conclusions can be drawn from the results of this study as showed below: 1.The important factors influence the decision of taking Herbal medicine preferred are found: Sex, age between 45-54 and 55-64 years old, marital status, education, occupation of household head; household income; number of people have income; urbanization, geographic of household; expenditure on NHE (National Health Expenditure); the number of elder over 65 years old need to be fostered; the drinking behavior and the insurance hold of household. 2.The important factors influence the decision of taking Western medicine preferred are found: Marital status, education of household head; number of people have income; urbanization, geographic of household; the smoking and drinking alcohol of household and the insurance hold of household. 3.The important factors influence the decision of taking both Herbal and Western medicine preferred are found: Marital status, education of household head; number of people have income; urbanization, geographic of household; the drinking behavior and the insurance hold of household.