Abstract
Background: Cognitive frailty (CF) as a potential risk factor for dementia, functional disability, poor quality of life, and mortality. The aim of this study was to explore the health care-related utilization and out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditures, sociodemographic characteristics, and comorbidities among elderly Malaysians with CF. Methods: A cross-sectional study targeting elderly Malaysian aged ≥65 years was conducted. The study included all participants of the fourth phase of the Malaysian representative Long-Term-Research-Grant-Scheme Towards-Useful-Aging (LRGS-TUA) community-based study. A structured and validated interview questionnaire was used. Results: In total, 1006 elderly were interviewed, with a 66.18% response rate. Only 730 respondents met the inclusion criteria. Of the eligible respondents, the CF prevalence was 4.5%. Around 60.6% of the participants with CF had utilized outpatient care at government clinics within the past 6 months. The estimated mean total OOP payments for CF during the past 6 months was 84 Malaysian Ringgit (RM) (SD 96.0). Conclusions: CF among elderly Malaysians is within the internationally recognized range of prevalence. The OOP payments for seeking health care among CF elderly are not different from that of other elderly categories. There is a high possibility of underutilization of the health care services of CF cases while they are still needy.
Highlights
IntroductionIntroduction iationsAccording to international reports, human life expectancy increased from 61.7 years to 71.8 years between 1980 and 2015 [1,2]
The present study aimed to identify the health care utilization patterns, OOP expenditures, sociodemographic characteristics, and comorbidities among elderly Malaysians with cognitive frailty
The LRGS The Malaysian longitudinal community based study (TUA) study included a total of 1520 participants, a multistage systematic random sampling technique was followed for the selection of cases out of the Malaysian elderly population
Summary
Introduction iationsAccording to international reports, human life expectancy increased from 61.7 years to 71.8 years between 1980 and 2015 [1,2]. The percentage of elderly people is increasing faster than that of any other age group [1]. This age group is approaching 13% of the global population, with a 3% annual growth rate [1]. The expected global number of people aged ≥60 years will increase from 900 million to 2 billion between 2015 and 2050 [1,3]. Geriatric-related illnesses are expected to increase, leading to an urgent need to build comprehensive health care services that are appropriate for elderly needs [4]. This increase can be attributed to health care services advancement and increased access to it [4]
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