title: Factors explaining the use of health care services by the elderly.
abstract: The Anderson model of health services utilization, which relates use of service to predisposing, enabling, and need factors, has not often been applied to an elderly population. In this study, the factors of the Andersen model were used prospectively to predict utilization for a population sample of 1,317 elderly persons. Taken alone, the NEED construct was the most important single predictor of use of physician services, hospitalizations, ambulatory care, and home care. PREDISPOSING factors were better predictors of the use of dental services. Some of the variables studied were not related to utilization in the direction that would have been predicted from previous studies on general populations. Multivariate analyses demonstrated that the three constructs should be applied simultaneously when predicting use of services. These findings can be applied to the specific task of planning services for older people.
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000553:Ambulatory Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003752:Dental Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand / Q000639:trends; D006299:Health Services for the Aged / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006699:Home Care Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008404:Massachusetts; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009735:Nursing Homes / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011446:Prospective Studies