Equity and Health Care: Analysis of the Relationship Between Need for Care and the Utilization of Nursing Services in Canada

Abstract

This paper examined the relationships between need for care and the utilization of nursing services using data from the 1985 Canada Social Survey. The incidence of nursing utilization was estimated using probit regression, and the quantity of utilization, using a self-selectivity model. Further analyses involved exploring use-need relationships by partitioning the sample by need level and by examining interaction effects. It was found that a lower likelihood of using nursing services was associated with lower levels of need, males, married persons, and lower levels of education. Need was also significantly associated with the number of contacts with nurses. While income was not significant, the size of the use-need relationship was affected by socioeconomic and demographic variables, pointing up the necessity of disaggregated analyses.