| dc.description.abstract | BACKGROUND: The population of Taiwan is aging rapidly. To efficiently allocate limited health care resources, it is important to have a comprehensive understanding of the health care needs of the older population in Taiwan.
OBJECTIVE: (1) To describe the patterns of older people’s use of health care services in Taiwan under the National Health Insurance (NHI) program, and (2) to examine associations between chronic medical conditions and socio-demographic characteristics (i.e., age, gender and life style) among older population in Taiwan using Apriori algorithm.
METHODS: (1) The study population was defined as people aged 65 years and older in Taiwan in 2010. This study utilized a random sample from the National Health Insurance Research Database provided by the National Health Research Institutes, sampling information of using the NHI from 1,231,897 elderly people (the sample was 50% of elderly population over 65 years old in Taiwan) from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010. The variables of our experiment including age, gender, region, life circles, medical level, disease, clinic visits and cost. (2) Applying apriori algorithm to investigate the relevance of the six major chronic diseases of elderly population.
RESULTS: In 2010, (1) the average number of visits of elderly population is 28.54 times, which is higher than the average number of visits of all citizens (14.59 times). (2) Among all life circles, the average number of visits of off-shore island life circles (34.38 times) was the highest, but the application fee for health insurance of off-shore island life circles was the lowest. (3) The first three major disease of elderly population were: Spontaneously Hypertensive (6.67%), Diabetes (5.80%), and Acute Upper Respir Tract Infection (3.76%). (4) The prevalence of hypertension was the highest of the six major chronic diseases. For those between 75 and 84 years old has the highest prevalence of hypertension (60.26%), the prevalence of hypertension of females was higher than that of males (57.82%), and the off-shore island life circles has the highest prevalence of hypertension among others (60.31%).
(5) The prevalence of heart disease, cerebrovascular disease and renal disease were gradually increased with age. People should prevent heart disease, cerebrovascular disease and renal disease as soon as possible.(6) The association rules showed that hypertension was highly associated with other five chronic diseases, including heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, diabetes, liver disease and renal disease.
CONCLUSIONS: In Taiwan, the utilization of medical resources of older population was more frequently than all citizens, and was gradually increased with age. The demand of medical resources of older population was much higher, especially in circulation and musculoskeletal system. In terms of medical expenditure, application fee of NHI gradually increased with age, and reached a peak at age between 80 and 84. In terms of geographical regions, application fee of NHI is relatively higher in the Taipei and the Central region. In life styles, application fee of NHI of the metropolitan and the general life circles were much higher than the off-shore island. Decision makers of medical institutions can utilize the research results of this study to improve future budget planning and allocation of health care resources. | en_US |