Unmet needs for medical services: a reflection of the accessibility of primary care services?

In short,

  • The prevalence of unmet needs seems to have grown over the past decade, and reaches 18% in our study.
  • One out of five people perceive their health problems associated with unmet needs to be urgent, and a large percentage of people who reported unmet needs felt worried and experienced pain, and they needed to limit their activities.
  • This issue affects the population as a whole but is more common among young adults, recent immigrants, people who work or study, individuals with high levels of education and people who report being in poor health.
  • Unmet needs rates are clearly higher among individuals who have no family doctor and people who report an emergency unit as their usual source of primary care.