Recently, in South Korea, chronic diseases have increased due to the rising aging population and medical expense burden has risen with the appearance of new medical industries, which requires radical change in health care system and qualitative improv...
Recently, in South Korea, chronic diseases have increased due to the rising aging population and medical expense burden has risen with the appearance of new medical industries, which requires radical change in health care system and qualitative improvement including a change to sustainable system, establishment of appropriate reward system, proper use of health care service and establishment of fair competition rule.(Future Health Care Committee, 2011; Ministry of Health & Welfare, 2011)
In a changed health care environment, consumers are required to become an active and independent participant of health care and manage their health in both treatment and prevention on their own. However, according to 2015 Korean Consumption Index, status and guarantee of right of health care service consumers are still poor even though they have been improved somewhat for the last ten years. Asymmetric information which is the greatest characteristics of field of health care causes health care service consumers to be passive. (Shmanske, 1996; Pauly,1998)
The right to know, one of rights that health care service consumers have is a very important right that can reduce asymmetric information and is ahead of rights of self determination. State specifies the right to know to guarantee it and prepare system to help implement the right but the right to know is still not guaranteed. It is advisable for schools to teach students rights and responsibilities of health care service consumers and a wise use of health care.
At present, schools teach students rights of health care service consumers, the use of health care and health resources and search for information through health education course but research on students' awareness and implementation of the right to know lack and teachers' awareness is insufficient and they are not covered properly at schools.
In order to improve above mentioned situation, this study surveys high school students' awareness and implementation of the right to know health care service consumers and verifies relationships between awareness of the right to know and its implementation to find out factors which influence the level of implementation. This study is a positive survey research aiming to provide basic data for health care service consumers which can improve their rights and awareness. Research problems for this study are as follows.
Research problem 1. What is the level of knowledge, attitude and implementation of the right to know health care service consumers among high school students and is there any difference depending on characteristics of subjects and questions?
Research problem 2. What relationship is there between the level of awareness of the right to know among high schools students such as knowledge and attitude and the level of implementation of the right to know among high schools students?
Research problem 3. What are factors that influence the level of implementation of the right to know health care service consumers among high schools students?
Research problem 4. What is an influence of health care service consumer education on the implementation of the right to know health care service consumers?
In order to investigate and reveal above research problems, this study surveyed three hundred and ninety three students attending three high schools in small and medium cities near Seoul. The findings of such survey are as follows.
It was found that the level of knowledge of the right to know is moderate, attitude is upper and middle and implementation is lower and middle. For knowledge and attitude, there is no difference depending on characteristics of those surveyed. For implementation, there is a difference depending on a degree of interest in health among health care service consumer factors. When surveying levels of knowledge, attitude and implementation according to questions, it was found that questions of legal basis for the right to know show the highest percentage of correct answers followed by questions of request for medical record and medical doctors' duty of explanation. Questions of purpose of system relating to the right to know, purchase of prescription and scope of medical doctors' explanation showed low percentage of correct answers. The level of implementation is lower than that of awareness consisting of knowledge and attitude. Those surveyed have little understanding of purpose and use of relevant system, which led to low level of implementation.
The level of awareness of the right to know and that of implementation show positive correlation but the influence of level of awareness was very low. Only level of attitude can influence the level of implementation but its influence was very low. Knowledge influenced the level of attitude but its influence was very low.
Levels of knowledge and attitude of those surveyed little influenced implementation, which suggests that health care environment and system have greater influence on the level of implementation that personal characteristics or experience and health education does not influence the level of implementation of the right to know due to the lack of health care service consumer education.
Therefore, it is advisable to provide health care service consumer education which improves knowledge and attitude to high school students so that they can have an ability as independent and active health care participant and secure hours for such education and prepare practical curriculum. It is necessary to discuss health education curriculum and educational program which helps improve health literacy.