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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Age and mental health status differences in medical service utilization in an integrated primary care setting | | Author(s) | David C Speer, Larry W Dupree, Celestino Vega |
| Journal title | Clinical Gerontologist, vol 27, no 4, 2004 |
| Pages | pp 71-82 |
| Source | http://www.tandfonline.com |
| Keywords | Mental health [elderly] ; General practice ; Usage [services] ; Referrals ; Psychiatric treatment ; Cross sectional surveys ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | This study explored age and mental health (MH) referral status effects on a variety of patient, medical and medical service utilization variables among adults seen in a rural integrated (mental health) primary care practice. The study cohort consisted of the first 150 consecutive patients referred for brief MH service, together with a comparison group of 150 general medical patients not referred for MH service, and 34 matched older MH patients and controls. Results showed that older medical patients had significantly more medical problems and used more prescribed medications than younger medical patients. Older patients referred for MH services had experienced significantly more deaths among significant others, more adverse life events and more family caregiver responsibilities than their younger counterparts. In contrast to medical patients, younger and older patients referred to MH care did not differ on medical variables or service utilizations variables, except for prescribed medication. Referred elders also had more medical problems than matched older medical patients. The presence of integrated MH services appeared to markedly reduce age and mental health status differences on most medical service variables. (KJ/RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-040928219 A |
| Classmark | D: L5: QLD: L5R: LP: 3KB: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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