Self-perceptions of ageing, GP visits and frequent attendance. Longitudinal findings from the German Ageing Survey

Abstract

Objectives

The aim of this study was to clarify the link between self-perceptions of ageing and the number of general practitioner (GP) visits, as well as frequent GP visits, longitudinally.

Methods

In this study, longitudinal data with n = 7,062 observations from 2014 (wave 5) to 2017 (wave 6) were taken from the German Ageing Survey (representative sample of middle aged and older individuals residing in private households). The five-item Attitudes Toward Own Ageing subscale of the Philadelphia Geriatric Center Morale Scale (PGCMS) was used to quantify self-perceptions of ageing. The frequency of GP visits in the past 12 months served as outcome measure (first model: measured continuously; second model: top 10% were defined as frequent attenders). To exploit the features of panel data, and to mitigate the problem of unobserved heterogeneity, fixed effects regressions were used.

Results

Adjusting for predisposing characteristics, enabling resources and need-factors, regressions showed that an increase in self-perceptions of ageing was associated with decreases in the number of GP visits (IRR= .83 (95% CI: .77-.91)), and a decreased likelihood of becoming a frequent attender (OR= .44 (95% CI: .29-.66)).

Conclusions

Using data from a longitudinal study and exploiting the longitudinal data structure, the current study adds to our current knowledge by demonstrating that self-perceptions of ageing contribute to the frequency of GP visits as well as frequent attendance. Since self-perceptions of ageing are modifiable, this may help to manage health care use.

Keywords:

• Primary health care
• healthy aging
• health services for the aged
• aging satisfaction
• frequent attendance
• general practitioner visits
• self-perceptions of ageing

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All participants provided written informed consent. An ethics committee was not required for the DEAS study, as the criteria for such a vote was not needed (e.g. use of invasive methods or risk for the respondents).

Data availability statement

The data used in this study are third-party data. The anonymized data sets of the DEAS (1996, 2002, 2008, 2011, 2014, and 2017) are available for secondary analysis. The data has been made available to scientists at universities and research institutes exclusively for scientific purposes. The use of data is subject to written data protection agreements. Microdata of the German Ageing Survey (DEAS) is available free of charge to scientific researchers for non-profitable purposes. The FDZ-DZA provides access and support to scholars interested in using DEAS for their research. However, for reasons of data protection, signing a data distribution contract is required before data can be obtained. Please see for further Information (data distribution contract): https://www.dza.de/en/fdz/access-to-data/formular-deas-en-english.html.