本篇論文利用衛生福利部國民健康署88年與92年「台灣地區中老年身心生活狀況長期追蹤調查」之調查資料，我們欲透過該資料，以瞭解婚姻與醫療利用的關係；研究議題包含比較中老人在不同婚姻狀態下，其利用醫療資源的機率，以及在已就醫的情況下，不同婚姻狀態下的老人，其利用醫療資源的多寡。
本研究實證結果顯示，有偶者在中醫門診利用機率與次數，皆顯著較無偶者低，而有偶者的西醫門診利用次數，顯著多於無偶者；另外，當女性從有偶轉變為無偶，亦或是一直處於無偶狀態者，其中醫門診的利用機率與次數皆為增加，相反的，當男性處於無偶狀態時，其西醫門診利用次數則減少。由此可知，婚姻狀態確實會影響老人的醫療服務利用行為。因此，本文建議政府在制定老人健康計畫時，可以針對不同婚姻狀態的老人，提供不同的相關課程，例如：針對單身女性，提供飲食養生的課程，藉以替代中醫養生保健的功能，降低中醫門診醫療利用量。未來，希望政府可以透過類似上述的方式，減緩國民健康保險日益惡化的財務狀況。

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between marital status and health care utilization by the elderly. Based on the year of 1999 and 2003 Survey of Health and Living Status of the Elderly in Taiwan, we applied two models: probit model and negative binomial regression model to our study. The first, probit model were used to calculate the probability of using medical services by marital status; the second, negative binomial regression model were used to calculate the number of medical use by marital status on condition that the elderly having used medical services.
Findings show that the married use traditional Chinese medicine is less than the singles; On the contrary, the utilization of outpatient by the married is more than by the single. In addition, the utilization of traditional Chinese medicine by the single woman is more than by the married woman; However, the utilization of outpatient by the single man is less than by the married man.

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