Social factors influencing the use of medical facilities by infants and their parents A case study of a city near Tokyo

Objective This study aimed to demonstrate relationships between frequency of visits to medical facilities for infants and factors, including social elements, generally thought of as influencing the frequency. Methods A questionnaire survey was conducted among parents with infants living in a city near Tokyo. The subjects comprised 957 residents (97.9% were the mothers) who had infants attending nursery schools, kindergartens and/or infant circles. In this city, parents can use medical care for infants free of charge, because of subsidies for medical costs from the local government. Data for 790 out of the 957 residents were adopted for this study. The questionnaire included attributes of infants and parents such as age, sex, birth order, parent' employment status and social factors such as the availability of childcare support from family or relatives or others, attitude of parents to utilization of medical resources, and whether the infants concerned had a chronic illness. As the dependent variable, respondents were asked about the number of visits to medical facilities by their infants during the previous year. The responses to the survey were analyzed by simple and multiple regression. Results In the simple and multiple regression analyses (adjusted for infants' age, sex, birth order, parents' employment status), statistically significant correlations were found between the number of visits to medical facilities and the answers to following questions: whether the infants concerned had a chronic illness; the availability of childcare support from family or relatives; and the attitude of parents to utilization of medical resources. There were no correlations with infants' age, infants' sex, infants' birth order, parents' employment status, and the extent of childcare support from friends. Conclusions The frequency of use of medical facilities by infants is negatively associated with social factors such as the availability of childcare support from relatives and positively correlated with infants' chronic illness and parents' lack of hesitation in using medical services for infants.