Longitudinal Analysis of Outpatient Physician Visits in the Oldest Old: Results of the AgeQualiDe Prospective Cohort Study.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to identify determinants of outpatient health care utilization among the oldest old in Germany longitudinally.

DESIGN: Multicenter prospective cohort "Study on Needs, health service use, costs and health-related quality of life in a large sample of oldest-old primary care patients (85+)" (AgeQualiDe).

SETTING: Individuals in very old age were recruited via GP offices at six study centers in Germany. The course of outpatient health care was observed over 10 months (two waves).

PARTICIPANTS: Primary care patients aged 85 years and over (at baseline: n=861, with mean age of 89.0 years±2.9 years; 85-100 years).

MEASUREMENTS: Self-reported numbers of outpatient visits to general practitioners (GP) and specialists in the past three months were used as dependent variables. Widely used scales were used to quantify explanatory variables (e.g., Geriatric Depression Scale, Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale, or Global Deterioration Scale).

RESULTS: Fixed effects regressions showed that increases in GP visits were associated with increases in cognitive impairment, whereas they were not associated with changes in marital status, functional decline, increasing number of chronic conditions, increasing age, and changes in social network. Increases in specialist visits were not associated with changes in the explanatory variables.

CONCLUSION: Our findings underline the importance of cognitive impairment for GP visits. Creating strategies to postpone cognitive decline might be beneficial for the health care system.