Health Service Utilization Pattern and Costs Incurred by People Living with HIV/AIDS at the Nkambe District Hospital, Cameroon

Purpose: Even though ART services in Cameroon are highly subsidized, people living with HIV/AIDS still incur a non-ART drug cost.  This piece of paper is aimed at investigating the health service utilization pattern and the outpatient and inpatient costs incurred by people living with HIV/AIDS in the Nkambe District Hospital. Methodology: A single facility-based cross-sectional survey was conducted between February and June 2018 at Nkambe District Hospital. A micro-costing analysis was used to determine the direct and indirect cost of treatment and access. Data were collected using an administered questionnaire and secondary data from patients’ files, analyzed using a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). A convenient and purposive sample of 346 participants were enrolled (281 outpatients and 65 inpatients). Results: Result shows that, majority of participants (97.5%) were in their follow up visit. 83.3% had been on ART for more than 1year, while more than half (59.5%) visited the hospital every after 3months for ART refilled. 80% of admitted cases were admitted for the first time. An average direct cost of treatment access was 2108.89FCFA ($3.47) for outpatient and 30414.31FCFA ($54.12) for inpatient, giving an annual average cost of 8435.56FCFA ($15) and 121657.24 FCFA ($216.5), respectively. Conclusion: This work concluded that the of ART services is not sufficient to eliminate the economic burden of treatment on HIV patients. Recommendations: Implementing effective community dispensation of ARVs and other differentiated care models like multi-month scripting and home dispensations well as creating more HIV treatment centers is vital. Also, implementation of a user fee policy for other HIV services. Finally, accelerating the process of universal health coverage in Cameroon will go a long way to help HIV patients and their households.