Correlates of out-of-pocket and catastrophic health expenditures in Tanzania: results from a national household survey

Table 3 Factors associated with out-of-pocket health expenditure among older participants (>60yrs) (n = 1018)

Explanatory variables	Bivariate statistics^a		Multivariate statistics^b
	β (95% CI)	p value	β (95% CI)	p value
Age in years	+0.01 (−0.02; +0.04)	0.64	−0.01 (−0.04; +0.02)	0.42
Female gender	−0.35 (−0.90; +0.19)	0.20	−0.37 (−0.89, +0.16)	0.16
Lack of formal education	−0.69 (−1.23; −0.16)	0.01	−0.48 (−0.96, +0.01)	0.05
Widowhood	−0.13 (−0.68; +0.42)	0.63	−0.26 (−0.73; +0.22)	0.28
Worked as manual laborer in the past	−0.73 (−1.31; −0.15)	0.01	−0.29 (−0.90; +0.30)	0.33
Asset Index^c	+0.03 (−0.04; +0.09)	0.39	+0.06 (−0.01; +0.12)	0.08
BMI more than 30 (kg/m²)	+0.87 (+0.26; +1.49)	0.005	+0.62 (−0.04; +1.28)	0.06
Presence of blindness/visual defect	+0.85 (+0.22; +1.49)	0.009	+1.03 (+0.29; +1.77)	0.01
Presence of hearing defect	−0.61 (−1.64; +0.43)	0.25	−0.24 (−1.35; +0.86)	0.66
Presence of limb defect	+0.11 (−0.81; +1.04)	0.81	−0.14 (−1.04; +0.75)	0.75
Presence of psychiatric morbidity	−1.16 (−2.60; +0.27)	0.11	−0.98 (−2.56; +0.60)	0.22
Presence of functional disability	+1.05 (+0.53; +1.57)	<0.001	+0.70 (+0.14; +1.26)	0.01
Traditional healer visits	+1.67 (+0.69; +2.65)	<0.001	+1.43 (+0.66; +2.20)	<0.001

^aSurvey generalized linear regression models with log link function using out-of-pocket health expenditure (in Tanzanian Schilling) as the dependent variable for older participants aged above 60years; ^bAdjusted for all bivariate significant variables with out-of-pocket health expenditure (in Tanzanian Schilling) as the dependent variable ; ^cAsset Index constructed using Principal Component Analysis. BMI = Body Mass Index.

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