Abdominal symptoms, visits to the doctor, and medicine consumption among the elderly. A population based study

Abdominal symptoms are frequent in the normal elderly population, but only a minority contact doctors. The present study was performed to assess the impact of abdominal symptoms on primary health care and medicine consumption and, in addition, to describe factors that relate to resource consumption. A postal questionnaire was mailed to a random cohort of 859 Danish people at the age of 75. Seventy-nine percent returned the questionnaire. A total of 31% of the men and 42% of the women had experienced at least one abdominal symptom within the past year. Among these 25% had visited a doctor and a little less had taken medicine. The total expenses used on primary health care and medicine were 22,000 U.S. Dollars per 1000 persons. Factors related to visiting a doctor were not only the presence of symptoms but also the subject's concept of the symptom as a health problem. As a consequence, efforts to control expenses should also focus on why some subjects consider their symptoms a health-problem while others do not.