PREVALENCE OF DISTRESS FINANCING AND CATASTROPHIC HEALTH EXPENDITURE IN CANCER PATIENTS: A STUDY FROM INDIA

*Abas Khan, Farooq A Jan, Haroon Rashid, Arshad Manzoor Najmi and Imtiyaz Ahmed Wani

ABSTRACT

Cancer is the second leading cause of death and disability around the world. More number of people now die of cancer than from all cases of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria put together. Households with a cancer patient experienced significantly higher Out of pocket (OOP) expenditure per capita as compared with households having a non cancer patient. The likelihood of experiencing catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) in case of cancer was 160% more than for any other disease in India. In our study of Cancer patients, 72% of the patients experienced distress financing while as 90.00% of the patients had catastrophic health expenditure.

Keywords: Cancer, distress financing, Catastrophic health expenditure.