[Health care usage by Moroccans and Turks compared to the indigenous Dutch population: no higher consumption of health care and lower medication costs].

Objective: Examination of whether health care consumption of Moroccan or Turkish insured under the Dutch national health system varies from that of the indigenous Dutch population.

Design: Retrospective, transverse.

Method: Research was performed on the database of an insurance company concerning medication, referrals to a specialist, admissions to the hospital and use of physiotherapy. Data of 22,603 Moroccan and 15,190 Turkish persons from the records for 1999 were compared with a random sample of 17,976 other persons in the database and differences were tested after correction for differences in age and sex.

Results: Foreigners received 50% less physiotherapy, while hospital admissions did not differ from the control group. The number of referrals to a specialist and the number of prescriptions for Moroccans appeared to be higher, but the number of consumers appeared to be equal to the control group. Turks on the contrary showed an equal number of referrals, but fewer prescriptions. The differences concerned mostly long-term physiotherapy and also referrals to specialists in internal medicine and gynaecology. Differences in prescriptions were found for certain medication groups. Costs for medication for foreigners were lower per insured person.

Conclusion: Foreigners did not have a higher consumption of health services than indigenous persons, whilst medication costs were lower.