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Morbidity and medication consumption among users of home telecare services.
- Source :
- Health & Social Care in the Community; May2017, Vol. 25 Issue 3, p888-900, 13p, 1 Diagram, 4 Charts
- Publication Year :
- 2017
-
Abstract
- Telecare is a healthcare resource based on new technologies that, through the services offered, attempt to help elderly people to continue living in their homes. In this sense, first-generation telecare services have quickly developed in Europe. The aim of this work was to define the profile, pattern of medication consumption and disease frequencies of elderly users of a telecare service. The cross-sectional study involved 742 Spanish community-dwelling elders (85.3% of the total users aged 65 years and over who used a telecare service before the end of the data collection period). Data were collected between March and September 2012. Subjects' mean age was 83.3 ( SD 6.6) years, and the majority lived alone (78.3%) and were female (85.8%). The mean Charlson comorbidity index score was 1.13 ( SD 1.1), and the mean number of prescribed medications per day was 5.6 ( SD 3.0). The most frequent diseases were hypertension (51.1%) and rheumatic disorders (44%); and the most consumed medications were those for the cardiovascular (75%) and nervous (65.2%) systems. For the total sample, the three main determinants of polymedication (five or more medications) were hypertension, anxiety-depressive symptoms and coronary heart disease. Regardless of the social elements contributing to the implementation of telecare services, specific health characteristics of potential users, such as morbidity and polypharmacy, should be carefully considered when implementing telecare services in the coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- AGE distribution
CHI-squared test
CONFIDENCE intervals
STATISTICAL correlation
DISEASES
HOME care services
RESEARCH methodology
SEX distribution
T-test (Statistics)
TELEMEDICINE
MULTIPLE regression analysis
EFFECT sizes (Statistics)
INDEPENDENT living
CROSS-sectional method
RETROSPECTIVE studies
SEVERITY of illness index
POLYPHARMACY
DATA analysis software
ODDS ratio
OLD age
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 09660410
- Volume :
- 25
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Health & Social Care in the Community
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 122251232
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.12377