Case finding in elderly people: validation of a postal questionnaire

Area of Science:

• Gerontology
• Primary Care Medicine
• Health Services Research

Background:

• Primary care faces challenges in cost-effectively identifying elderly patients with unmet needs.
• Efficient case-finding methods are essential to improve health outcomes for older adults.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an economical postal questionnaire method for identifying high-dependency elderly patients.
• To create a statistical formula weighting factors for assessing patient dependency levels.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a postal questionnaire targeting elderly patients (aged 75 and over).
• Employed statistical methods to derive a formula for weighting dependency indicators.
• Assessed the reliability and cost-effectiveness of the case-finding approach.

Main Results:

• A postal questionnaire combined with statistical weighting can reliably identify high-dependency elderly patients.
• This method is cost-effective, requiring assessment of 50-67% of the target population.
• Successfully identified groups with a high level of dependency.

Conclusions:

• Postal questionnaires offer a viable and economical strategy for case finding in primary care for the elderly.
• The developed formula aids in prioritizing and addressing the needs of high-dependency older adults.
• This approach can significantly reduce unmet needs within primary care populations.