EMPLOYEE AWARENESS AND PERCEIVED SERVICE QUALITY OF SOCIAL HEALTH INSURANCE BENEFIT IN TANZANIA: EVIDENCE FROM DAR ES SALAAM NSSF MEMBERS

Author Name: 1 Zakia Mohamedi Salumu, 2 Josephine Manase

Volume: 01 &  Issue:

Country: TANZANIA

DOI NO.: 08.2020-25662434 DOI Link: http://www.doi-ds.org/doilink/02.2021-76214764/UIJIR

Affiliation:

¹Principal Social Welfare Officer; Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children in Tanzania

²Research Officer in Sociology; Food and Nutrition Centre in Dar es Salaam Tanzania

ABSTRACT

The government of Tanzania decided to implement reforms in health care services by introducing cost sharing to overcome several challenges which were facing health sector in 1990s. One of the reforms was introduction of health insurance schemes. This study assessed employee awareness and perceived service quality of Social Health Insurance Benefit (SHIB) in Tanzania by drawing evidence from National Social Security Fund (NSSF) members in Dar es Salaam Region. A cross sectional study design was adopted to collect information by using survey method. Simple random sampling was used to select respondents. The study used structured questionnaire as an instrument of data collection. Data was analysed through Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version16 to generate descriptive statistics including frequencies and percentages which presented in tables and figures. The results show that many SHIB members (76.5%) were aware about the role of NSSF in the enrollment of new SHIB members in comparison to small percent (34.7%) of non-SHIB members who have such awareness. Also, many SHIB members (74.5%) were aware of the period of at least three months of employee contribution in NSSF is a criterion for an individual to apply for SHIB membership while small percentage of non-SHIB members (42.2%) were aware about that criterion. Many respondents agreed with service quality provided by SHIB accredited health care institutions with regard to reliability (54.9%) and empathy (53.9%) of health care services while disagreed with tangibles (60.9%), responsiveness (56%) and assurance (65.7%) of health care services offered when they compared with their expectations. The study recommends to the NSSF management to continue raising awareness through providing education regarding the package of SHIB scheme while making collaboration with accredited private and government health care facilities so that they can improve the quality of health care services to meet customer expectations.

Key words: School children, Knowledge, Practice