Analysis of morbidity in Czechia investigating health care provision and take-up in relation to diabetes mellitus
Abstract
Diabetes mellitus is a life-threatening disease which presents as raised blood glucose. Late detection or a failure to follow treatment guidelines may lead to complications that significantly impact on the sufferer's daily life and require expensive medical treatment.
The growing prevalence of this disease therefore presents enormous risks to health care systems and society as a whole. The aim of this thesis is to analyse the geodemographic characteristics of the current diabetic population in Czechia.
Particular attention will be paid to the age of diabetes sufferers, since in Czechia data on this is lacking. In pursuit of this aim the thesis makes use of anonymised data from the largest Czech health insurance company.
The first part of the thesis looks at diabetes as a medical condition, concentrating primarily on the basic types of the disease but also considering the potential health complications this disease causes. The theoretical part discusses the main risk factors of developing the disease, such as genetic predisposition, age, obesity and other potential factors that increase the risk of diabetes.
The central part of the thesis consists of analytical chapters that look at the prevalence and incidence of diabetes as well as the population age structure of diabetics. Age can be a determining factor for diabetes.
Since diabetes is a potentially fatal disease, deaths in diabetes sufferers are also analysed in detail. The data obtained from Czech General Health Insurance allows us to investigate the provision and take-up of health care among diabetics.
The subsequent analyses therefore allow us to highlight any insufficiencies in health care provision. This thesis includes a chapter on modelling future change, which could be used to predict the number of sufferers on the basis of predetermined assumption.