AN INVESTIGATION ON THE HEALTHCARE USE OF ELDERLY INDIVIDUALS IN TERMS OF SOME VARIABLES: A CROSS-SECTIONAL RESEARCH

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: This study was carried out for the purpose of determining the factors that affect the usage of healthcare services by elderly individuals.MATERIAL AND METHODS: 266 elderly patients who visited a family health center between the dates of 01.02.2019 – 01.06.2019 were randomly selected, and the questionnaires were applied to those who agreed to participate in the study with the method of face-to-face interviews. Sociodemographic characteristics as age, marital status, educational level, employment status, gender, scope of health insurance, household income and chronic disease status were given as frequencies and percentages. Fisher’s exact test was used to analyze the relationships among usage of healthcare services and marital status and household income. Simple binary logistic regression analysis was used to determine which factor was a significant predictor of healthcare usage.RESULTS: It was determined that gender, perceived health status and having a chronic disease were significantly related to usage of healthcare services, while usage of healthcare services among women was 2.23 times more than that in men, and it was 3.27 times more among those with at least one chronic disease than those without.CONCLUSIONS: The data in our study may be used by healthcare policymakers and program administrators for the purpose of increasing the access to healthcare services among the elderly and especially for the sake of promotion and improvement of health campaigns. This way, it may be achieved to increase the probability of reaching healthcare counseling after being diagnosed with a chronic disease, and thus more severe complications and injuries that may occur may be prevented.