Abstract
Background
Older adults tend to have multiple comorbidities and specific needs that require timely assistance. The information on percentage and characteristics of older adults that self-refer to physiotherapy is scarce, thus our objective is to characterise them in terms of socio-demographic aspects and health conditions across 15 European Countries.
Methods
Individuals aged 65 years and over from the first wave of the European Health Interview Survey across 15 European Countries was used. The information retrieved for analysis was: sex, age, country, education’ levels, income, self-perception of health, health conditions, and visits on their own behalf to a physiotherapist.
Results
The sample comprised 39,922 older adults, aged 75.6 (7.8) years old, and of which 60.5% were women. The percentage of self-referral to physiotherapy varied between 3.3 and 29.9% across countries. Older adults reporting osteoarthritis, neck pain, low back pain or stroke were associated with higher rates of self-referral.
Conclusion
Our study shows that a small percentage of older adults self-refer to physiotherapy and confirmed higher income and higher education’ levels are associated with direct access/self-referral to physiotherapy, suggesting the need to improve public health systems, health insurance and campaigns promoting physiotherapy targeting older adults and their careers.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the database from EUROSTAT. The results and conclusions are the responsibility of the authors of this publication and not of the responsibility of Eurostat, the European Commission or any of the national statistical authorities whose data have been used in this study.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).