Frequent use of emergency departments and chronic conditions in ageing societies: a retrospective analysis based in Italy

BACKGROUND: Most western countries are facing relevant demographic changes, and the percentage of older people is destined to rise in the next decades. This fact is likely to affect the sustainability of healthcare systems significantly, mainly due to the connected issue of chronicity. METHODS: In this paper, using an extensive and comprehensive administrative dataset, we analyse the phenomenon of frequent use of emergency departments (ED) in the oldest region in Europe (i.e. Liguria) over 4 years (2013–2016). Two alternative approaches are used to define categories of ED users based on the intensity and frequency of accesses and splitting patients into different age groups. RESULTS: Results allow identifying clinical and socio-demographic risk-factors connected to different levels of ED utilisation and highlight the influential role played by chronic conditions (particularly mental disorders, respiratory diseases) and by multiple chronic conditions. CONCLUSIONS: The study aims at representing an informative tool to support policy-makers in setting proper policies addressed, on the one side, towards the potentially preventable frequent users and, on the other, towards those accessing due to complex medical conditions. The results can help in building a warning system to help general practitioners in the identification of potential frequent users and to develop preventive policies.