Characteristics of elderly frequent clinic attenders in a Shanghai community health service center / 中华全科医师杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To analyze the characteristics of elderly frequent clinic attenders in a Shanghai community health service center.Methods The medical records of patients over 60 year who visited Shanghai Weifang Community Health Center clinic from October 2014 to October 2017 were obtained from the hospital outpatient management system.The persistent frequent attenders were defined as whose visiting times were among the top 10％ of attendance in the three consecutive years.The general condition and disease characteristics of persistent frequent attenders were analyzed and compared with those of non-frequent attenders and transient frequent attenders.Results There were total 19 240 patients paying 1 171 thousand clinic visits in the center for three years,the persistent frequent attenders accounted for 5.3％ (1 029) of total patients and had 21.4％ of total visits (251 thousand);those figures for transient frequent attenders were 10.2％(1 965) and 23.9％ (280 thousand);for non-frequent attenders were 84.5％ (16 246) and 54.7％(640 thousand),respectively.The average annual visits of three groups were (81.4 ± 27.5),(47.5 ± 21.4) and (13.1± 11.1) times,respectively.The reasons for encounter in persistent frequent attenders werecoronary heart disease (11.2％,48 thousand),cerebral insufficiency (3.5％,15 thousand),joint pain (2.5％,11 thousand),osteoporosis (2.9％,13 thousand) and sequelae of stroke (2.1％,9 thousand).Age above 70(OR=2.163,95％CI1.872-2.498),age above 80 (OR=2.243,95％CI 1.895-2.655),female sex (OR=1.426,95％CI1.249-1.627) and contracting general practitioners (OR=5.665,95％CI 4.217-7.611) were associated with persistent frequent attendance (P＜0.05).Conclusion Elderly frequent attenders occupy large outpatient resources of community health center,and age,gender and contracting status could affect their attending frequency.