The impact of economic factors on the realities of outpatient multi-drug treatment of chronic diseases in rural areas.

The reform of the health care system in Poland introduced in 1999 brought not ony a lot of disappointments arising from the failure in performing its basic assumptions, but also from the deterioration in access to medical care by patients coming from the poorest class of the Polish population. The subjects were 209 people at the age of 52-80 years including 149 women and 60 men - inhabitants of rural areas of Lublin province. These were outpatients who attended the Endocrine Clinic in Poniatowa.