Int J Front Sci Original Article Page 1 of 6 Access to Healthcare A critical analysis of individual patient factors in gaining access to healthcare Muhammad Hassan Naveed 1 , Ghulam Mustafa Asim 1 , Muhammad Mohid Tahir 1 ABSTRACT Background: Pakistan is one of the largest host of refugees. People in Pakistan have bad access to healthcare not only due to bad facilities but also due to discrimination based on their personal characteristics and possessions. The behavior not only damages the dignity of the people being targeted but also creates hindrances in further seeking professional medical help and follow-ups thus deteriorating the health status of the community as a whole. Health providers possess a moral commitment to encourage dignity and treat their patients without any kind of discrimination in their behavior. Patient experiences of discrimination result in delay in seeking healthcare, they do not stick to advice of professionals and ultimately poor health. The objective of this study is to identify sources of discrimination and its effects on patients' health status and their level of satisfaction. Methods: This descriptive study took place in Outdoor Patient Department, Mayo Hospital, Lahore. 170 patients were selected from all the patients coming to OPD with equal male to female ratio. Each patient was given a questionnaire containing relevant questions to know whether they faced any sort of discriminatory behavior or not. Results: 66% females and 49% males of the study sample experienced discrimination at some stage of their hospital visit. Conclusion: Our study concluded that females experienced more discrimination than males. Therefore, gender is the most important factor when it comes to discriminatory experiences. Moreover, people with the higher income had fewer incidents of discrimination than their counterparts. Introduction In Pakistan, the system of health has basically been originated from the health system of British before the Independence of subcontinent. It consists of primary , secondary and tertiary healthcare that is gradually evolving with time. Discrimination means the prejudice or partiality those different categories of people face. Discriminatory behavior based on people’s socioeconomic status, their sexual identities and various racial, religious or ethnic backgrounds is a ground reality globally. In a research conducted about discriminatory experiences on African American it was found that 63% felt discriminatory behavior in accessing to healthcare due to their colour and race and 58.9% felt distinctive behavior due to their low socioeconomic rank. (1) Often a visible contrast in health laws of a country and provision of health care facilities is observed. (2) Discriminatory behavior is faced by different category of people and the numbers vary in different settings. It was revealed that more than 10 percent of patients suffered some sort of distinctive behaviour in their stay at hospital, the common patient factors were age, language, nationality, these factors being negatively perceived. Skin color, sexual orientation, and income based discrimination were relatively uncommon. Any type of discrimination was associated with lesser satisfaction of the patient as compared to patients facing no discrimination. (5) A country must possess a health system that protects the integrity and physical dignity of each individual. The individual physical dignity and integrity is recognized in international law. (3) Health providers possess a moral commitment to encourage dignity and treat their patients without any kind of discrimination in their behavior. (4) Patient experiences of discrimination result in delay in seeking healthcare, they do not stick to advice of professionals and ultimately poor health. (5) Pakistan is one of the largest host of refugees. People in Pakistan have bad access to healthcare not only due to bad facilities but also due to discrimination based on their personal characteristics and possessions. Refugees also suffer from discrimination in host country. Findings from both Canada and Sweden show decline in their health status after settling in host country. (6) Because of discrimination there is underutilization of health care consequently increase in morbidity and mortality. (7) Maintaining and assuring patients dignity must be a top 1. King Edward Medical University, Lahore, Pakistan *Correspondence: hassannaveed73@gmail .com Keywords: Prejudice, Race factors, Tertiary Healthcare, Patient Satisfaction doi:10.37978/tijfs.v5i1. 323 Submitted: August 19, 2020 Accepted: October 17, 2020 Published Online: December 20, 2020 How to cite this: Naveed, M.H., Asim, G.M., and Tahir, M.M. 2020. A critical analysis of individual patient factors in gaining access to healthcare. Int J Front Sci, 5(1). This article is open access under terms of Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0. which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is cited properly. Significance: Impartial access to health care is the right of every human being. Even though it is the first priority of every doctor to provide the best care to their patients, often times, patients do not have equal access to health care. This research was conducted to evaluate such parameters which affected patients' experience with the healthcare system. This research would serve as the guiding principles that the doctors can adopt to remove such prejudices from their practice.