Depression may play an important role in determining frequent physician visits in the older population. Our aim is to examine the relationships between socio-demographic variables, co-morbidity, memory complaints, functional status, depressive symptomatology, and health care utilization among community dwelling older patients. The study was conducted in urban primary health care clinics in Beer-Sheva, Israel. Two groups were identified: low care utilizers (LCU), with ≤ 6 visits to family physicians (FP)/year and high care utilizers (HCU) with ≥ 16 visits to FP/year. Data were collected during a structured face-to-face individual interview. The study population included 180 patients, of them 86 (47.7%) were LCU and 94 (52.2%) were HCU. In all clinical measurements the HCU group indicators were statistically significant worse off than the LCU group: average depressive symptoms (5.6 vs. 2.5, p<0.01), memory complaints (57.5% vs. 23.3%, p<0.01), Barthel Index (BI) (89.9 vs. 96.0, p<0.001), OARS (10.8 vs. 12.5, p<0.01), and co-morbidity: total cumulative score (TCS) of Charlson comorbidity index (CCI) (2.2 vs. 1.3, p<0.01). Our study raises the possibility that at least one of the reasons for over-utilization of health services by older residents in the community is depressive symptomatology.
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