Prevalence and range of geriatric medicine services across Europe: a survey of 39 countries

The role of geriatricians has evolved across Europe in response to increasing ageing populations. However, there is much variation with some countries providing a range of geriatric medicine (GM) services, while others have few or no services. This survey assessed the type and frequency of different GM services provided across Europe.

A cross-sectional survey of the board members of the European Union of Medical Specialists-Geriatric Medicine Section was performed, requesting information on the existence and frequency of 25 types of possible GM-related services (ranging from inpatient, rehabilitation, liaison, outpatient and community services). The questionnaire classified service availability from institutions into four levels: No-0(not available), Yes-1(Minority of institutions < 25%), Yes-2(Some; 25-75%) or Yes-3(Majority; > 75%). A descriptive comparative analysis was performed.

We got responses from 39 countries, divided into 4 geographical regions: Nordic (n = 5), Central/West Europe (n = 9), East Europe (n = 17) and South Europe (n = 8). We found great variation in services between countries, with the Nordic (80%) and Central/West (86.2%) countries providing most of the surveyed geriatric medicine services, while East Europe lacked most geriatric medicine services (24.9% only) and South Europe having a mixed picture. A notable 33% of the countries reported having no acute geriatric wards, 17.9% in a minority, 17.9% in some and 30.7% in most of the institutions in their countries.

This is the first large survey of provision of GM services across Europe and shows wide discrepancy across European countries. The data will be helpful for discussions with policy makers in developing GM services in their countries.