Depressive symptomatology as a risk factor for increased health service utilization among elderly patients in primary care

Depression may play an important role in determining frequent physician visits in the older population. Our aim is to examine the relationships between socio-demographic variables, co-morbidity, memory complaints, functional status, depressive symptomatology, and health care utilization among community dwelling older patients. The study was conducted in urban primary health care clinics in Beer-Sheva, Israel. Two groups were identified: low care utilizers (LCU), with ≤6 visits to family physicians (FP)/year and high care utilizers (HCU) with ≥16 visits to FP/year. Data were collected during a structured face-to-face individual interview. The study population included 180 patients, of them 86 (47.7%) were LCU and 94 (52.2%) were HCU. In all clinical measurements the HCU group indicators were statistically significant worse off than the LCU group: average depressive symptoms (5.6 vs. 2.5, p < 0.01), memory complaints (57.5% vs. 23.3%, p < 0.01), Barthel Index (BI) (89.9 vs. 96.0, p < 0.001), OARS (10.8 vs. 12.5, p < 0.01), and co-morbidity: total cumulative score (TCS) of Charlson comorbidity index (CCI) (2.2 vs. 1.3, p < 0.01). Our study raises the possibility that at least one of the reasons for over-utilization of health services by older residents in the community is depressive symptomatology.