Purpose Frailty as a predictor of health care utilisation is well-studied; however, the role of sociodemographic factors in shaping this relationship remains less understood. This study aimed to use nationally representative Canadian data to examine how the association between frailty and health care utilisation varies by sex, immigration status and race. Design/methodology/approach A total of 70,825 respondents aged ≥ 45 were included in the study from the public use microdata files of the Canadian Community Health Survey 2013–2014. The outcome measures included general practitioner (GP) visits, specialist (SP) visits and inpatient admissions. A 28-item frailty index (FI) was constructed to measure the cumulative deficit related to age. Logistic and count data regression models were used to examine the association between FI and health care utilisation, adjusting for potential covariates. Findings Average (standard deviation) number of GP visits, SP visits and inpatient admissions was 2.91 (±3.69), 1.00 (±2.07) and 0.58 (±3.13), respectively, in the past 12 months. About 57% of the respondents were in low (≤ 0.1), followed by 27.2% in medium (0.11–0.20), 9.3% in high (0.21–0.30) and 6% in very high (≥ 0.31) FI groups. FI was positively associated with health care utilisation. However, the magnitude of association across most outcomes was consistently larger among males, immigrants and visible minorities. For instance, the very high frailty (≥ 0.31) had a larger association with the number of SP visits for visible minorities compared to Whites. Originality/value The findings underscore the importance of considering sociodemographic factors in addressing health care needs among frail populations. Future research can investigate how sociodemographic factors intersect and influence the relationship between frailty and health care use.
Hasan et al. (Tue,) studied this question.