Individual factors associated with medical consultation by adults

• Autor(a) principal: Capilheira, Marcelo F
• Data de Publicação: 2006
• Outros Autores: Santos, Iná da Silva dos
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por; eng
• Título da fonte: Revista de Saúde Pública
• Texto Completo: https://www.revistas.usp.br/rsp/article/view/32058
• topic: Serviços de saúde^i1^sutiliza; Acesso aos serviços de saúde^i1^sestatística e dados numéri; Necessidades e demanda de serviços de saúde^i1^sestatística e dados numéri; Estudos transversais; Health services^i2^sutilizat; Health services accessibility^i2^sstatistics & numerical d; Health services needs and demand^i2^sstatistics & numerical d; Cross-sectional studies

OBJECTIVE: To identify individual characteristics associated with a higher likelihood of consulting a physician and excess physician appointments. METHODS: We carried out a population-based study including 3,100 adults (>;20 years) living in the city of Pelotas, Southern Brazil between October and December 2003, using a multi-stage cluster sampling strategy. Subjects were interviewed to obtain socioeconomic, demographic, and health-related data, as well as information on the number of medical appointments in the past three months. Overusage was defined as >;4 appointments. Multivariate analysis was carried out using Poisson regression based on a conceptual model, and results are presented as prevalence ratios and their respective 95% confidence intervals. RESULTS: The prevalence of medical appointments was 55.1%. Higher likelihood of consulting a physician was associated with female sex, hospital admission in the past year, former smoking, diabetes, and arterial hypertension. We found an increasing trend in the number of appointments with increasing age (p