TITLE:
Disability and health service utilization among old Koreans
AUTHORS:
Ju Moon Park
KEYWORDS:
Disability; Health Status; Chronic Condition; Hospitalization; Older Koreans
JOURNAL NAME:
Health,
Vol.6 No.5,
February
24,
2014
ABSTRACT: This study compared
persons with disabilities with those without disabilities in terms of health
services utilization and examined the factors associated with the use of
inpatient hospital services. Data on a sample of 4040 older adults (65+ years
of age) from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing were used. Descriptive and
logistic regression analysis was performed examining sample characteristics
of participants with and without disabilities and factors significantly
associated with health services utilization. This study showed that the
elderly with disabilities used significantly more inpatient hospital services
than the elderly without disabilities. As expected, poor health was clearly
the most influential factor explaining the use of inpatient hospital services.
The second most influential factor in determining use of medical services is
disability. Persons with disabilities had a twofold or more increase in the
odds of using inpatient hospital services. Likewise, the person with chronic
condition had also an additional twofold increase in risk for medical services due to the chronic condition. Chronic conditions were clearly the third influential factor explaining the use of
inpatient hospital services. Finally, females were a small margin more likely
to use inpatient hospital services than males.