Patients' attitudes toward copayments as a steering tool-results from a qualitative study in Norway and Germany.

Background: Copayments are implemented in many health care systems. The effect of copayments differs between countries. Up to now, patients' attitudes regarding copayments are mainly unknown.

Objectives: Thus, the goal of our analysis was to explore adult patients' attitudes in Germany and Norway towards copayments as a steering tool.

Methods: We conducted a qualitative comparative study. Episodic interviews were conducted with 40 patients in Germany and Norway. The interviews were analysed by thematic coding in the framework of grounded theory. All text segments related to copayments were analysed in depth for emerging topics and types.

Results: We found three dimensions of patients' attitudes towards copayments: the perceived steering effect, the comprehensibility, and the assessment of copayments. The perceived steering effect consists of three types: having been influenced by copayments, not having experienced any influence and the experience of other persons to be influenced. The category comprehensibility describes that not all patients understand rules and regulations of copayments and its caps. The assessment of copayments consists of nine subcategories, three of which are rather negative and six of which are rather positive. In all three dimensions the patterns between the German and Norwegian sub-samples differ considerably.

Conclusions: The results of our study point at the importance of communicating clear rules for copayments which are easily comprehensible.