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CHAPTER six
The Patients
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National Medical Care Statistics 2014
CHAPTER 6: THE PATIENTS
The characteristics of patients presenting to primary care are reported in this chapter. These include the sociodemographic characteristics age, gender, nationality, ethnicity, individual income and
education level and mode of payment. Issuance of medical certificates and duration of sick leaves given if any during primary care visits are also reported here.
6.1 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PATIENTS
A total of 27,587 encounters 15,470 in public clinics and 12,117 in private clinics were captured in NMCS 2014. Post-stratification weighting translated this figure into a total of 325,818 primary care
encounters: 131,624 40.4 in public clinics and 194,194 59.6 in private clinics.
Table 6.1.1 shows the characteristics of primary care patients in Malaysia for 2014. • Females accounted for the greater proportion 53.6 of all encounters.
• The median age of the patients was 35.7 years IQR: 23.5–52.7 years, and the age distribution was as follows: infants 1 year: 2.3, 1–4 years: 5.7, 5–19 years: 11.7, 20–39 years: 37.3,
40–59 years: 28.0, and ≥ 60 years: 15.0.
• Malaysians made up 93.3 of all encounters. Majority of the patients were Malay 62.6, followed by Chinese 21.2, Indian 10.8 and other ethnic groups 5.4.
• Most 43.0 patient encounters were paid for by government subsidies, followed by out-of-pocket payments 34.1 and third-party payments 22.3.
• About two-thirds 64.0 of patients reported having personal income. More than half 55.2 of the patients had a monthly personal income between MYR 1,000 and MYR 2,999 parental income
excluded. • The vast majority 89.0 of patients had received some form of formal education: 20.8 had
primary education, 46.9 had completed at least some secondary education, and 21.3 had tertiary education.
• Medical certificates were issued to 31.2 of patients. Most 83.3 of the issuances took place in the private sector. The duration of sick leave given ranged from 0.5 to 20 days.
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