ArticleTropical diseases, travel medicine and vaccines2019
Treatment destinations and visit frequencies for patients seeking medical treatment overseas from the United Arab Emirates: results from Dubai Health Authority reporting during 2009-2016.
Article in Tropical diseases, travel medicine and vaccines, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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4 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Financial venous stasis and thrombosis: A circulatory architecture for frozen capital and high-value care.Northern clinics of Istanbul · 2026Review
- The State of Cancer Care in the United Arab Emirates in 2022.Clinics and practice · 2022Review
- The Socio-Demographic Characteristics Associated with Non-Communicable Diseases among the Adult Population of Dubai: Results from Dubai Household Survey 2019.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Motivational factors for choosing treatment destinations among the patients treated overseas from the United Arab Emirates: results from the knowledge, attitudes and perceptions survey 2012.Tropical diseases, travel medicine and vaccines · 2019Article
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6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundEach year, the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) spends millions of dollars to cover the costs of United Arab Emirates (UAE) nationals seeking healthcare overseas. Patients may travel overseas to seek an array of treatments. It is important to analyze the number of trips and treatment destinations for patients travelling overseas to provide baseline information for the DHA to improve polices and strategies related to overseas treatment for UAE nationals.
methodsAdministrative data were obtained from the DHA for UAE nationals who sought medical treatment overseas during 2009-2016. We examined the number of trips and treatment destinations by medical specialty, age, gender, years of travel and travel seasons. Multinomial logistic and negative binomial regression models were used to assess the relationships of the treatment destinations and number of trips, respectively, with the key variables of interest.
resultsThe study included data from 6557 UAE nationals. The top three treatment destinations were Germany (46%), the UK (19%) and Thailand (14%). The most common medical specialties were orthopedic surgery (13%), oncology (13%) and neurosurgery (10%). Oncology had the highest expected number of trips adjusted for a number of covariates (IRR 1.34, 95% CI: 1.24-1.44). Regarding destination variation, patients had a lower relative risk ratio of seeking healthcare in Germany in the winter (RRR 0.68, 95% CI: 0.57-0.80). Endocrinology was the most common medical specialty sought in the UK (RRR 3.36, 95% CI: 2.01-5.60).
conclusionsThis is the first study to systematically examine the current practice of medical treatment overseas among UAE nationals. The results demonstrate that treatment destinations, medical specialties for which treatment was sought, age, gender and travel season are significant factors in understanding overseas travel for medical care. The study can guide the DHA in collecting more data for further research that may lead to policy-relevant information about sending patients to the best-quality treatment choices at an optimal cost.
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