Cargando…

Characteristics of Elderly Frequent Attendees in Slovene Family Medicine Practices - a Cross-sectional Study

INTRODUCTION: Frequent attendance in family medicine practices is associated with elderly patients and those with chronic diseases. Longstanding frequent attendees have more social and psychiatric problems, medically unexplained conditions, and chronic diseases, and are prescribed more psychotropic...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Rifel, Janez, Selic, Polona
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: AVICENA, d.o.o., Sarajevo 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6690307/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31452632
http://dx.doi.org/10.5455/msm.2019.31.93-98
_version_ 1783443172545789952
author Rifel, Janez
Selic, Polona
author_facet Rifel, Janez
Selic, Polona
author_sort Rifel, Janez
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Frequent attendance in family medicine practices is associated with elderly patients and those with chronic diseases. Longstanding frequent attendees have more social and psychiatric problems, medically unexplained conditions, and chronic diseases, and are prescribed more psychotropic drugs and analgesics. AIM: To fill the lack of data on the factors associated with frequent attendance at family medicine practices by the elderly. METHODS: Forty family physicians (FPs) participated in this cross-sectional study in 2017 and randomly recruited up to 20 of their patients; 624 patients were recruited. From the patients’ health records, the FPs collected demographic data, lifestyle factors, all the patients’ diagnoses, all the drugs prescribed in the previous 12 months, multi-morbidity (CIRS-G index), the quality of life index (EQ-5D) and the number of visits to the family medicine practice in the previous 12 months. The Self-Rating Depression Scale was administered to the patients. Statistical analysis was carried out using the IBM SPSS 20.0 package, with appropriate non-parametric tests (Mann-Whitney U test, chi-square test) to check significant differences between groups of patients. Multivariate modelling was carried out to evaluate the associations between the number of visits to the FP and independent variables. RESULTS: The number of prescribed drugs (p=0.026), haematological problems (p=0.005) and genitourinary problems (p=0.001) were associated with frequent attendance. Patients with borderline depression were approximately three times more likely to be frequent attendees than non-depressed patients. CONCLUSION: Polypharmacy, haematological and genitourinary problems are associated with frequent attendance in elderly patients. Further longitudinal studies are required to validate our findings.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-6690307
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2019
publisher AVICENA, d.o.o., Sarajevo
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-66903072019-08-26 Characteristics of Elderly Frequent Attendees in Slovene Family Medicine Practices - a Cross-sectional Study Rifel, Janez Selic, Polona Mater Sociomed Original Paper INTRODUCTION: Frequent attendance in family medicine practices is associated with elderly patients and those with chronic diseases. Longstanding frequent attendees have more social and psychiatric problems, medically unexplained conditions, and chronic diseases, and are prescribed more psychotropic drugs and analgesics. AIM: To fill the lack of data on the factors associated with frequent attendance at family medicine practices by the elderly. METHODS: Forty family physicians (FPs) participated in this cross-sectional study in 2017 and randomly recruited up to 20 of their patients; 624 patients were recruited. From the patients’ health records, the FPs collected demographic data, lifestyle factors, all the patients’ diagnoses, all the drugs prescribed in the previous 12 months, multi-morbidity (CIRS-G index), the quality of life index (EQ-5D) and the number of visits to the family medicine practice in the previous 12 months. The Self-Rating Depression Scale was administered to the patients. Statistical analysis was carried out using the IBM SPSS 20.0 package, with appropriate non-parametric tests (Mann-Whitney U test, chi-square test) to check significant differences between groups of patients. Multivariate modelling was carried out to evaluate the associations between the number of visits to the FP and independent variables. RESULTS: The number of prescribed drugs (p=0.026), haematological problems (p=0.005) and genitourinary problems (p=0.001) were associated with frequent attendance. Patients with borderline depression were approximately three times more likely to be frequent attendees than non-depressed patients. CONCLUSION: Polypharmacy, haematological and genitourinary problems are associated with frequent attendance in elderly patients. Further longitudinal studies are required to validate our findings. AVICENA, d.o.o., Sarajevo 2019-06 /pmc/articles/PMC6690307/ /pubmed/31452632 http://dx.doi.org/10.5455/msm.2019.31.93-98 Text en © 2019 Janez Rifel, Polona Selic http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Rifel, Janez
Selic, Polona
Characteristics of Elderly Frequent Attendees in Slovene Family Medicine Practices - a Cross-sectional Study
title Characteristics of Elderly Frequent Attendees in Slovene Family Medicine Practices - a Cross-sectional Study
title_full Characteristics of Elderly Frequent Attendees in Slovene Family Medicine Practices - a Cross-sectional Study
title_fullStr Characteristics of Elderly Frequent Attendees in Slovene Family Medicine Practices - a Cross-sectional Study
title_full_unstemmed Characteristics of Elderly Frequent Attendees in Slovene Family Medicine Practices - a Cross-sectional Study
title_short Characteristics of Elderly Frequent Attendees in Slovene Family Medicine Practices - a Cross-sectional Study
title_sort characteristics of elderly frequent attendees in slovene family medicine practices - a cross-sectional study
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6690307/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31452632
http://dx.doi.org/10.5455/msm.2019.31.93-98
work_keys_str_mv AT rifeljanez characteristicsofelderlyfrequentattendeesinslovenefamilymedicinepracticesacrosssectionalstudy
AT selicpolona characteristicsofelderlyfrequentattendeesinslovenefamilymedicinepracticesacrosssectionalstudy