==== Front BMC Health Serv Res BMC Health Serv Res BMC Health Services Research 1472-6963 BioMed Central London 9703 10.1186/s12913-023-09703-1 Research Association between caregiver type and catastrophic health expenditure among households using inpatient medical services: using Korean health panel Park Yu shin 12 Kim Hyunkyu 23 Yun Il 12 Park Eun-Cheol 23 Jang Suk-Yong sukyong@yuhs.ac 124 1 grid.15444.30 0000 0004 0470 5454 Department of Public Health, Graduate School, Yonsei University, 50 Yonsei-to, Seodaemun-Gu, Seoul, 03722 Republic of Korea 2 grid.15444.30 0000 0004 0470 5454 Institute of Health Services Research, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea 3 grid.15444.30 0000 0004 0470 5454 Department of Preventive Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea 4 grid.15444.30 0000 0004 0470 5454 Department of Healthcare Management, Graduate School of Public Health, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea 3 7 2023 3 7 2023 2023 23 72120 3 2023 15 6 2023 © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. Background Caregiving services often place a financial burden on individuals and households that use inpatient medical services. Consequently, this study aimed to examine the association between the type of caregiver and catastrophic health expenditure among households utilizing inpatient medical services. Methods Data were extracted from the Korea Health Panel Survey conducted in 2019. This study included 1126 households that used inpatient medical and caregiver services. These households were classified into three groups: formal caregivers, comprehensive nursing services, and informal caregivers. Multiple logistic regression was used to analyze the association between caregiver type and catastrophic health expenditure (CHE). Results Households receiving formal caregiving had an increased likelihood of CHE at threshold levels of 40% compared to those who received care from family (formal caregiver: OR 3.11; CI 1.63–5.92). Compared to those who received formal caregiving, households using comprehensive nursing services (CNS) had a decreased likelihood of CHE (CNS: OR, 0.35; CI 0.15–0.82). In addition, considering the economic value associated with informal care, there was no significant relationship between households received formal caregiving and informal caregiving. Conclusion This study found that the association with CHE differed based on the type of caregiving used by each household. Households using formal care had a risk of developing CHE. Households using CNSs were likely to have a decreased association with CHE, compared to households using informal and formal caregivers. These findings highlight the need to expand policies to mitigate the burden on caregivers for households forced to use formal caregivers. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-023-09703-1. Keywords Catastrophic health expenditure Formal caregiver Informal caregiver Comprehensive nursing service issue-copyright-statement© BioMed Central Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2023 ==== Body pmcBackground Nursing care delivery systems differ based on national policies, culture, and healthcare systems in each country. Formal or informal caregivers, such as family members, can reside in hospital rooms to support daily patient care in several Asian countries, including Korea, China, and Taiwan, and some African countries [1]. South Korea maintained a patient–individual caregiver nursing system since the early 1980s [2]. This is a phenomenon in which part of the nurses’ work has been transferred to caregivers due to the lack of nursing staff in Korea [3]. In South Korea, there are usually two types of private caregiving: formal caregivers who receive payment for patient care services during hospitalization, and informal caregivers, called family caregivers, who provide care to family and friends without receiving payment. Approximately 13.8–25.5% of inpatients hire formal caregivers due to the lack of caregivers owing to nuclear familization and the expansion of women’s socioeconomic participation [4–6]. A previous study highlighted that this expansion of private caregiving services resulted in social costs, creating an economic burden on caregiver service costs, or causing the cost of losing family productivity, reaching seven to eight trillion won annually in 2018 [4, 7]. The burden and stress experienced by formal caregivers widely plague South Korea’s healthcare system and have been described in studies of quality of life and out-of-pocket costs for caregiving from conditions such as dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and cancer [8–10]. The issue of informal caregiver burden was explained as a loss of productivity of family members or mental health from conditions such as stroke and cancer [11–13]. However, no studies simultaneously compared the burdens of informal and formal care. To alleviate the burden on caregivers, the Korean government launched a comprehensive nursing care service (CNS) system in 2015 that provides comprehensive nursing care by nurses and nursing assistants without a protector or caregiver residing for the care of inpatients [4, 14]. The system was expected to decrease the burden of care stress and alleviate the burden of caring costs by paying a CNS instead of an average of 100 dollars per day when a patient is admitted to the CNS ward [14, 15]. However, few studies have evaluated the decrease in the care burden of this service. This study used a cross-sectional design based on the type of caregiver to evaluate whether the type of care was associated with catastrophic health expenditure. Additionally, this study also investigated whether the type of care was related to the economic burden of households using the CNS, implemented to alleviate the burden of care. Methods Data sources This study extracted data from the first wave (2019) of the Korean Health Panel (KHP) dataset. The KHP was conducted by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs and the National Health Insurance Corporation. The KHPS is a national public database (https://www.khp.re.kr) that includes an identification number for each household and member. However, the number is not associated with any personal identifying information, and the data collection system and database were designed to protect respondents’ confidentiality. The KHP includes secondary data to gather and provide household and individual-level scientific data on health service use, expenditure, and health behaviors. The KHP questionnaires consisted of household and member components and were surveyed using both interview and diary methods to supplement memory. Participants We analyzed the household level and extracted households that even one of the household members has been hospitalized and utilizing private caregiving service (formal care, informal and CNS). The data included 6,748 households and 16,589 household members from 2019. First, we extracted 1,495 households out of a total of 6,748 households in which at least on member of household experienced hospitalization during the study period. And of these, 369 households, which used inpatient medical services but did not use caregivers, were excluded. Finally, we extracted 1,126 households for our study (Appendix Figure 1). This was done to minimize the difference in severity between patients using caregivers and those not using caregivers. Variables The dependent variable was CHE, as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO). Xu et al. [16] described CHE as when the annual health spending of a household exceeds 40% of the total annual household spending of food expenditure, excluding dining-out expenses [17, 18]. Out-of-pocket health expenditure (OOPHE) refers to payments made on direct health expenditure (households for doctor’s consultation fees, hospital bills, purchase of medication, and emergency medical costs) and indirect health expenditure (caregiver costs). The method of calculating caregiving costs differs depending on the type of caregiving cost. Formal caregiver costs were measured by multiplying the average formal caregiver payment per day by the total number of days that the caregiving services were received. Comprehensive nursing service costs were included in hospital expenses, namely, direct health expenditures. Informal caregiving was excluded from the cost estimation because it did not incur costs. However, there have been discussions on replacing the costs of informal care. Excluding the cost of informal care in economic evaluations and cost of illness studies could lead to underestimating the true costs, benefits, and burdens of interventions and diseases. Therefore, it is crucial to include these costs to ensure a comprehensive range of estimates [19]. Therefore, this study added a sensitivity analysis by calculating costs using opportunity and alternative cost approaches [20, 21]. The opportunity cost approach applied informal care to the 2020 reservation wage rate which was calculated by the cost based on the minimum wage announced by the Minimum wage council republic Korea [22]. The cost was estimated 68,720 won. And the alternative cost approach applied the annual average formal caregiving cost. The average per-day payment to caregivers, used to estimate the cost of daily informal caregiving, was based on the 2018 Healthcare Experience Survey [23]. The OOPHE consisted of household-level data, and one value was allocated to each household characteristic in this study. The independent variable was the caregiving type, and the study households were categorized into three groups: household members who received care from formal caregivers who were paid for their service (formal caregivers), household members who received comprehensive nursing services (comprehensive nursing services), and household members who received care from informal caregivers, who were family or friends, usually without payment (informal caregivers). In this study, households were classified as “formal caregivers if their members received formal care.” Households were classified as “comprehensive nursing service (CNS)” if their members never received formal care but received comprehensive nursing services. This study controlled for covariates, such as sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors of the household. Sociodemographic factors included householders’ sex (male or female), householders’ age (< 65, 65–74, or > 65 years), number of household members (1,2, or ≥ 3), the existence of older adults in a household (yes or no), and region (urban or rural). Socioeconomic factors included income quartile (low, low-middle, middle-high, or high), having a medical aid health coverage scheme (yes or no), and householders’ employment status (paid worker, self-employed worker, or other). Inoccupation, students, and unpaid family workers were classified as “other.” Furthermore, the medical utilization characteristics were included as a continuous variable: the number of hospitalizations within one year, the total number of days of hospitalization of household members, admission to a long-term care hospital (yes or no), primary diagnosis for admission was neurologic disease (yes or no), cardiovascular disease (yes or no), hematologic or oncologic disease (yes or no), and musculoskeletal disease (yes or no). Statistical analysis To confirm the association between the type of caregiving and catastrophic health expenditure, the covariates were compared using the chi-square test and t-test. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate the association between the caregiving type and catastrophic health expenditure. The results were reported as odds ratios (ORs) and confidence intervals (CIs). Sensitivity analyses were conducted to evaluate the association between CHE and caregiving type by estimating the informal caregiving cost by calculating costs using opportunity and alternative cost approaches for ensuring comprehensive range of estimates. Model fitting was performed using the PROC SURVEYLOGISTIC procedure. All analyses were conducted using the SAS software, version 9.3 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC, USA). Results Table 1 presents the characteristics of the study population, with a CHE threshold level of 40%. Of the 1,126 households, 70 (6.2%) households belonged to the “formal caregiver” group, of which 39 (55.7%) had a CHE threshold level of 40%. Furthermore, 70 (6.2%) households belonged to the “comprehensive nursing service” group, of which 18 (25.7%) had a CHE threshold level of 40%. A total of 986 (87.6%) households belonged to the “informal caregiver” group, 157 (15.9%) of which had a CHE threshold level of 40%.Table 1 General characteristics of the study population (2019) Variables Catastrophic health expenditure Total Yes No N %a N %b N %b P-value Total 1,126 100.0 214 19.0 912 81.0 Type of caregiver  < .0001  Informal caregiver 986 87.6 157 15.9 829 84.1  Comprehensive nursing service 70 6.2 18 25.7 52 74.3  Formal caregiver 70 6.2 39 55.7 31 44.3 Household head's sex 0.0051  Male 866 76.9 147 17.0 719 83.0  Female 260 23.1 67 25.8 193 74.2 Household head's age  < .0001  less than 65 449 39.9 21 4.7 428 95.3  65–74 276 24.5 68 24.6 208 75.4  more than 75 401 35.6 125 31.2 276 68.8 Household head's employment status  < .0001  Paid worker 429 38.1 32 7.5 397 92.5  Self-employed worker 282 25.0 58 20.6 224 79.4  othersa 415 36.9 124 29.9 291 70.1 Household's Income level  < .0001  low 274 24.3 93 33.9 181 66.1  low-middle 341 30.3 93 27.3 248 72.7  middle-high 265 23.5 21 7.9 244 92.1  high 246 21.8 7 2.8 239 97.2 Region 0.0064  Urban 460 40.9 76 16.5 384 83.5  Rural 666 59.1 138 20.7 528 79.3 Number of household members  < .0001  1 person 151 13.4 58 38.4 93 61.6  2 persons 513 45.6 133 25.9 380 74.1  over 3 persons 462 41.0 23 5.0 439 95.0 Medical-aid benficiary 0.9603  Yes 67 6.0 16 23.9 51 76.1  No 1059 94.0 198 18.7 861 81.3 Having a member with elderly ≥ 65  < .0001  Yes 729 64.7 201 27.6 528 72.4  No 397 35.3 13 3.3 384 96.7 Admission to long term care hospital 0.0113  Yes 19 1.7 12 63.2 7 36.8  No 1107 98.3 202 18.2 905 81.8 Primary diagnosis for admission Neuologic 0.0019  Yes 99 8.8 24 24.2 75 75.8  No 1027 91.2 190 18.5 837 81.5 Cardiovascular 0.0208  Yes 35 3.1 11 31.4 24 68.6  No 1091 96.9 203 18.6 888 81.4 Hematologic & oncologic  < .0001  Yes 99 8.8 35 35.4 64 64.6  No 1027 91.2 179 17.4 848 82.6 Musculoskeletal  < .0001  Yes 241 21.4 81 33.6 160 66.4  No 885 78.6 133 15.0 752 85.0 The number of hospitalization (mean/SD) 1127 100.0 2.3 2.1 1.6 2.8  < .0001 The total days of hospitalization (mean/SD) 1127 100.0 35.1 52.1 12.8 17.6  < .0001 acolumn percentage, b: row percentage Table 2 shows the association between the caregiver type and CHE. Those who received formal caregiving had an increased likelihood of CHE at threshold levels of 40% compared to those who received care from family (formal caregiver: OR, 3.11; CI, 1.63–5.92). Compared to those who received formal caregivers, households that used CNS had a decreased likelihood of CHE (CNS: OR, 0.35; CI, 0.15–0.82).Table 2 Association between type of caregiver and catastrophic health expenditure Variables Catastrophic health expenditure OR 95% CI Type of caregiver (group 1)  Informal caregiver 1.00  Formal caregiver 3.11 (1.63 - 5.92) Type of caregiver (group 2)  Informal caregiver 1.00  Comprehensive nursing service 1.08 (0.55 - 2.12) Type of caregiver (group 3)  Formal caregiver 1.00  Comprehensive nursing service 0.35 (0.15 - 0.82) Adjusted all covariates Figure 1 shows the association between caregiver type and CHE by region. Among households living in rural areas, those who received formal caregiving had an increased likelihood of CHE compared to those who received informal caregiving (formal caregiver: OR, 4.06; CI, 1.72–9.62).Fig. 1 Association between type of caregiver and catastrophic health expenditure stratified by region. All covariates adjusted *p-value<0.05 Table 3 presents the results of the subgroup analysis to assess the association between CHE and caregiving type. Households that received only formal caregiving in a year were more strongly associated with CHE than those that only received care from family (only formal caregiver: OR, 3.30; CI, 1.57–6.92).Table 3 Subgroup analysis stratified by type of caregiver Variables Catastrophic health expenditure OR 95% CI Type of caregiving  Only Informal caregiver 1.00  Only Comprehensive nursing service 0.98 (0.46 - 2.09)  Only Formal caregiver 3.30 (1.57 - 6.92)  Use more than 2 types of servicesa 2.42 (0.94 - 6.27) Adjusted all covariates aHouseholds using two or more of the three types of private care are included Table 4 shows the sensitivity analysis of the association between CHE and the caregiving type by estimating the informal caregiving cost. In Model 1, the informal care cost was calculated by applying the average annual cost of formal caregivers using the replacement cost method. Households that received CNS had a decreased likelihood of CHE compared to those that received formal or informal caregiving. (group 2: OR, 0.43; CI, 0.21–0.89, group 3: OR, 0.37; CI, 0.14–0.97). In Model 2, the informal care cost was calculated using the opportunity cost method by applying the annual reservation wage rate. Compared to those who received formal or informal caregiving, households that received CNS had a decreased likelihood of CHE, however, this was not significant.Table 4 Sensitivity analysis by estimated cost for informal caregiver Variables Catastrophic health expenditure OR 95% CI Sensitivity analysis model 1: informal caregiver cost, estimated by applying the market price of equivalent services Type of caregiver (group 1)  Informal caregiver 1.00  Formal caregiver 1.16 (0.56 - 2.40) Type of caregiver (group 2)  Informal caregiver 1.00  Comprehensive nursing service 0.43 (0.21 - 0.89) Type of caregiver (group 3)  Formal caregiver 1.00  Comprehensive nursing service 0.37 (0.14 - 0.97) Sensitivity analysis model 2: informal caregiver cost, estimated reservation wage rate Type of caregiver (group 1)  Informal caregiver 1.00  Formal caregiver 1.28 (0.63 - 2.60) Type of caregiver (group 2)  Informal caregiver 1.00  Comprehensive nursing service 0.54 (0.26 - 1.10) Type of caregiver (group 3)  Formal caregiver 1.00  Comprehensive nursing service 0.42 (0.16 - 1.08) Adjusted all covariates Discussion This study investigated the association between caregiver type and CHE at the household level among households utilizing inpatient medical services. Households receiving care from formal caregivers had a higher likelihood of CHE than households using informal caregivers. Compared to households using formal caregivers, those who used CNS had a lower association with CHE. The association with CHE differed based on the caregiving type used by each household. Previous studies have shown that the burden of caregiving is increasing in many countries. The present study’s results showed that utilizing informal caregivers, rather than formal caregivers, reduced the risk of CHE. This can be explained in three ways: first, family caregivers of ill family members are mostly middle-aged or older women who may not have previously engaged in socioeconomic activities [24]. Therefore, it would not have affected previous household income. However, the financial burden of caregivers in an ageing society, which requires more caregiving, will be greater in the future due to the next generation of women being actively engaged in socioeconomic participation. Second, the cost of official caregivers in Korea is approximately $100 per day, [14] which is entirely an out-of-pocket cost, and there are not enough policies or insurance supporting this. Public long-term care insurance, financed by a new compulsory social insurance system, was introduced in South Korea in 2008 [25]. However, it supports the utilization of long-term facilities and home care among the eligibility of the service. When examining policies related to alleviating the burden of caregivers in other countries, the policies did not focus on easing the burden of care for inpatients or the economic burden for paid caregivers. For example, the United States has two main federal policies providing workplace protection to caregivers with qualifications, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). According to the ADA, employers cannot discriminate against caregivers caring for ill family members. Under the FMLA, employees with caregiving responsibilities for a family member are protected by taking unpaid leave for a period of 12 weeks and returning to their job, if they meet the specific criteria for hours worked and tenure [26]. The reason other countries focus on family care is that they do not need caregivers for acute hospital admissions. Other countries, such as the United States and European countries, established nursing and care services for inpatients in acute medical facilities as the role of nurses and established various systems to provide high-quality nursing and care services, such as service quality evaluation [27]. CNS was introduced in Korea in 2015 to realize a nurse-centered care system. This study showed that households that received CNS had a lower risk of CHE than those that used formal or informal caregiving services. This might provide evidence that this system can alleviate the economic burden of private care for inpatients. However, there is a possibility that the proportion of mildly ill patients among inpatients is high, consequently, CNS was initially expanded to include hospitals [28–30]. Eight years have passed since the policy was implemented, however, only 42.1% of all hospitals in Korea and 27.5% of all beds provided CNS. This study’s results also show that only 6.2% of households have experienced CNS [31]. According to previous studies, it has locally expanded disproportionately owing to the supply and demand problem of nursing personnel [32]. In this study’s results, individuals living in rural areas had a high risk when making use of formal caregiving. This might be due to the income of individuals living in rural areas being lower than that of people living in urban areas, and the higher proportion of older adults in rural areas. Therefore, CNS is considered particularly necessary in rural areas. This study’s results indicated a strong association between households using informal caregivers and CHE among households receiving long-term care, compared to households using formal caregivers. The total days of care were strongly associated with the disease’s severity or the treatment’s intensity. Previous studies found that caregivers may experience a financial burden disproportionately relative to other caregivers due to the intensity of care they provide and the cost and complexity of treatment [26, 33, 34]. For example, the costs of caregiving increased significantly with increasing seizure frequency among patients with epilepsy [10]. Additionally, each stage of Alzheimer’s disease results in different responsibilities for caregivers, increasing their burden [33]. This study has some limitations. First, memory decay may be present, which may have interfered with each household’s complete healthcare expenditure and caregiving costs, as the KHP survey collected data through self-reports. While other data sources used for research on CHE in Korea have similar limitations, this study used the KHP dataset, which also used the complementary diary studies method to reduce recall bias and provided comprehensive information as a dataset specialized in health service use and expenditure. Second, this study was based on data from a cross-sectional study. Therefore, although associations could be confirmed, causality could not be evaluated. Third, owing to data restrictions, the opportunity costs of loss of productivity when using informal caregivers could not be estimated. Since this study’s data only covered one year, future data and research are required to evaluate the change in income. Fourth, the household level was analyzed, which did not fully capture the individual characteristics of illnesses, treatments, and length of hospital stay. However, this study considered the total sum of the length of hospital stay for family members and the sum of the number of hospitalizations of family members. Conclusions This study investigated the association between caregiver type and CHE at the household level among households utilizing inpatient medical services. Households using CNS were likely to have a decreased association with CHE, compared to households using formal or informal caregiving. These findings highlight the need to support households forced to use formal caregivers. Supplementary Information Additional file 1: Appendix figure 1. Flow chart. Additional file 2: Appendix table 1. Association between type of caregiver and catastrophic health expenditure. Abbreviations CHE Catastrophic health expenditure CNS Comprehensive nursing services KHP Korean Health Panel WHO World Health Organization OOPHE Out-of-pocket health expenditure ADA Americans with Disabilities Act FMLA Family Medical Leave Act Acknowledgements We would like to thank our colleagues from the Department of Public Health, Graduate School of Yonsei University, for providing advice on this manuscript. Authors’ contributions Hyunku Kim conceived of the presented idea. Yu Shin Park and Yun Il developed the theory and performed the computations. Yu Shin Park and Yun Il verified the analytical methods. Eun Cheol Park and suk-yong Jang encouraged Yu Shin Park to investigate this study and supervised the findings of this work. And no funding was received for conducting this study. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript. Funding The authors received no specific funding for this work. Availability of data and materials The Korea Health Panel is secondary data. The KHPS is a national public database (https://www.khp.re.kr) that includes an identification number for each household and each member; however, the number is not associated with any personal identifying information, and the data collection system and database were designed to protect respondent confidentiality. Respondents were required to read and sign an agreement form before participating in the KHPS and to consent that their data could be used in future scientific research. Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participate The Korea Health Panel Survey data is openly published. Thus, ethical approval was not required for this study. Consent for publication Not Applicable. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. 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