Assessment of reasons for encounter among elderly paents aending a terary hospital in Southern Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Reasons for encounter refer to the reasons why a paent seeks health care. Understanding individual expectaons makes it possible for an individualized response that paents value and which determines the effecveness of treatment. Assessment of reasons for encounter among geriatric paents in a primary care seng may provide an interesng perspecve. The aim of this study was to assess the reasons for encounter among elderly paents aending the Geriatric Clinic of a hospital in southern Nigeria.
Methods: A cross seconal study was conducted in which two hundred and fiy new paents aged 65 years and above were recruited over three months. A quesonnaire was used to obtain sociodemographic data. Reasons for encounter data was collected using a structured checklist based on second version of the Internaonal Classificaon of Primary Care (ICPC-2-E). SPSS version 18 was used for data analysis.
Results: Parcipants' age ranged from 65 years to 99 years with mean age of 72.3 ± 7.33 years. There were 140 females and 110 males with a female to male rao of 1.2:1. A total of 1,457 Reasons for encounters were seen among the 250 parcipants. This gave an average of six reasons for encounter per parcipant. The top three commonest reasons for encounter among the chapters were related to the musculoskeletal system, digesve system and cardiovascular system.
Conclusion: This study shows the frequency and distribuon of health complaints in the elderly commonly encountered in primary care. This is a reflecon of the individual paents' perceived needs, and priories regarding their health problem in our pracce seng.
Contribuon: Understanding the reasons for encounter across a primary care populaon is essenal for the development of people-centred health services.