A telephone support service to reduce medical care use among the elderly.
A randomized controlled trial was performed to determine whether a telephone support system could reduce the frequency of ambulatory physician encounters. A total of 182 elderly persons were enrolled in the study. The experimental group was regularly called by a public health nurse and could call the nurse every weekday during normal working hours. The control group received no intervention. A year later, the experimental group reported 7.40 ambulatory encounters with a physician (SD = 4.94) and the control group reported 8.61 encounters (SD = 6.85). The difference between the groups, after adjusting for various prognostic factors, was 1.20 (95% confidence interval, -0.84 to 3.24). Although the difference did not achieve statistical significance, the results suggest that telephone support may bring about a substantial decrease in medical care utilization. Further research assessing the cost-advantage ratio for this type of intervention is recommended.
Infante-Rivard
C
C
Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Hôpital Ste-Justine Faculty of Medicine, University of Montreal, Québec, Canada.
Krieger
M
M
Petitclerc
M
M
Baumgarten
M
M
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000553:Ambulatory Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003153:Community Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006299:Health Services for the Aged / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006699:Home Care Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009819:Office Visits; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D011637:Public Health Nursing; D011792:Quebec; D011897:Random Allocation; D012931:Social Environment; D013689:Telephone