ABSTRACT 

Objective: To determine the association between health insurance/health benefit and medication adherence amongst adult diabetic patients in Kingston, Jamaica.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. The target population was diabetics who attended the diabetic outpatient clinics in health centres in Kingston. Two health centres were selectively chosen in Kingston. All diabetic patients attending the diabetic clinics and over the age of 18 were conveniently sampled.  The sample size was 260. An interviewer-administered questionnaire was utilized. Health insurance/health benefit was assessed by this questionnaire.  Adherence was measured by patients’ self-reports of medication usage in the previous week. The Chi-squared test was used to determine the significance of associations.

Results: Sample population was 76% female and 24% male. Type 2 diabetics comprised 93.8%. More than 95% of patients were over the age of 40. Approximately 32% of participants were employed. Approximately 75% of patients had health insurance/health benefit. Among those who had health insurance or health benefit, 71.5% was adherent and 28.5% was non-adherent. This difference was statistically significant (χ2 = 6.553, p = 0.01). Prevalence of medication non-adherence was 33%.