Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2016 Feb 4:11:127-32.
doi: 10.2147/CIA.S88354. eCollection 2016.

Reasons for elderly patients GP visits: results of a cross-sectional study

Thomas Frese  1 , Jarmila Mahlmeister  1 , Tobias Deutsch  1 , Hagen Sandholzer  1
Affiliations

Reasons for elderly patients GP visits: results of a cross-sectional study

Thomas Frese et al. Clin Interv Aging. .

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study is to describe the frequency of reasons for elderly patients visits to a general practice (GP) setting.

Subjects and methods: Cross-sectional data from 8,877 randomly selected patients were assessed during a 1-year period by 209 GPs in the German federal state of Saxony. The reasons for visits, performed procedures, and results of visits were documented. In this study, the data of patients aged 65 years and older are analyzed and the procedural and nonprocedural reasons for visits are described.

Results: In all, 2,866 patients aged 65 years and older were included. The majority of patients (1,807) were female. A total of 4,426 reasons for visits were found, distributed on 363 International Classification of Primary Care-2 codes. In the mean, there were 1.5 reasons for a GP visit from each patient. The top five nonprocedural reasons for visiting the GP were: cough (1.8%), back complaints (1.6%), shoulder complaints (1.3%), knee complaints (1.1%), and dyspnea (1.0% of all reasons for visit). The top five procedural reasons for visiting the GP included follow-up investigations of cardiovascular or endocrine disorders and immunizations. The top 30 nonprocedural reasons for visits covered 21.9% of all reasons for visiting. The top 30 procedural reasons covered 54.3% of all reasons for visits.

Conclusion: The current work indicates that people aged 65 years and older consult the GP more frequently for procedural than for nonprocedural reasons. The top 30 procedural and nonprocedural reasons for visits cover ~75% of all reasons for visits in these patients.

Keywords: elderly; general practice; geriatric; primary care; reason for consultation; reason for visit.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Braunseis F, Deutsch T, Frese T, et al. The risk for nursing home admission (NHA) did not change in ten years – a prospective cohort study with five-year follow-up. Arch Gerontol Geriatr. 2012;54(2):e63–e67. - PubMed
    1. Schach E, Schwartz F, Kerek-Bodden H. Eine Erhebung über die ambulante medizinische Versorgung in der Bundesre-publik Deutschland. The EVaS-study. An assessment of ambulatory medical care in the Federal Republic of Germany] Köln: Deutscher Ärzte-Verlag; 1989. Die EVaS-Studie. German.
    1. Kühlein T, Laux G, Gutscher A, et al. Kontinuierliche Morbid-itätsregistrierung in der Hausarztpraxis – Vom Beratungsanlass zum Beratungsergebnis [Continuous registration of morbidity in general practice – from reason to result of encounter] München: Urban & Vogel; 2008. pp. 48–57. German.
    1. Kühlein T, Laux G, Gutscher A, et al. Versorgungsforschung in der Hausarztpraxis – Ergebnisse aus dem CONTENT-Projekt 2006–2009. [Health service research in general practice – Results from the CONTENT-project 2006–2009] München: Urban & Vogel; 2010. pp. 88–89. German.
    1. Nylenna M. Why do our patients see us? A study of reasons for encounter in general practice. Scand J Prim Health Care. 1985;3(3):155–162. - PubMed

Publication types