Attitudes and awareness of medical assistance while traveling abroad

Abstract

BackgroundWith globalization, more and more people travel to countries where they are at risk of injuries and travel-related diseases. To protect travelers’ health, it is crucial to understand whether travelers accurately perceive medical assistance resources before and during their trips. This study investigated the need, awareness, and previous usage of overseas emergency medical assistance services (EMAS) among people traveling abroad.MethodsAnonymous questionnaires were distributed to patients (n = 500) at a travel clinic in Taipei, Taiwan.ResultsThe results showed that EMAS were important, especially in the following categories: 24-h telephone medical consultation (91.8%), emergent medical repatriation (87.6%), and assistance with arranging hospital admission (87.4%). Patients were less aware of the following services: arrangement of appointments with doctors (70.7%) and monitoring of medical conditions during hospitalization (73.0%). Less than 5% of respondents had a previous experience with EMAS.ConclusionsEMAS are considered important to people who are traveling abroad. However, approximately 20–30% of travelers lack an awareness of EMAS, and the percentage of travelers who have previously received medical assistance through these services is extremely low. The discrepancy between the need and usage of EMAS emphasizes the necessity to adapt EMAS materials in pre-travel consultations to meet the needs of international travelers.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12992-018-0382-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Knowledge, Attitude, and Awareness of Health Insurance in Travel during the Covid-19 Pandemics

“…Among the respondents, 19.2% of subjects reported previous travel-associated illness. Compared with previous studies, about 14.2-60% of travelers experienced health problems during travel [10,12,13], the reason for the relatively low proportion in this study might be due to the younger age and higher educational level of our respondents. There were 39.7% of our subjects aged 20-30 years and 79.2% of our subjects were graduated from university or higher.…”

“…Christopher et al revealed only 36% people sought pre-travel counseling [16]. The pre-travel consultation rate was 0.1% in Taiwan while was 40.5% for all ill GoeSentinel travelers [10]. Although the percentage of willing for pre-travel consultation was low, the percentage of willing to buy travel related insurance was about 60-80% in this study.…”

“…More recent studies have shown about 60% of GPs in New Zealand [8] and 39% of travel clinics worldwide [9] usually give advice to travelers about travel insurance. Furthermore, we have shown previously that overseas emergency medical assistance services (EMAS) were considered important to travelers, but approximately 20-30% of travelers lacked an awareness of EMAS [10]. Since travel medicine services have also been severely required in the COVID-19 pandemic, we realized that pre-travel health care will be even more vital in the future [11].…”

Pre-travel Health Advice for Patients With Cardiovascular Disease

“…Indeed, emergency medical assistance service (EMAS) was perceived to be fundamental by international travellers based on a recent survey. 49 The study did not exclusively include travellers with CVD. Importantly, about 30% of travellers were not aware of EMAS abroad.…”

Traveler’s knowledge, attitude, and practice about travel health insurance: A community-based questionnaire study

“…Recent studies have shown that approximately 60% of General Practitioners in New Zealand [ 7 ] and 39% of travel clinics worldwide [ 8 ] usually advise travelers to buy travel insurance. Furthermore, as our previous study has shown, overseas emergency medical assistance services (EMAS) were considered important to travelers, but approximately 20%–30% of travelers lacked awareness about EMAS [ 9 ]. Since travel medicine services have also been indispensable in the COVID-19 pandemic, we realized that pre-travel healthcare will be even more vital in the future [ 10 ].…”