Gender differences in factors affecting use of health services: an analysis of a community study of middle-aged and older Australians
Section snippets
Background
Research on patterns of self-rated health and health service use suggests that women report having poorer health than men, and that, after controlling for health measures, women are more likely to obtain formal health care (Anson, Paran, Neumann, & Chernichovsky, 1993; Briscoe, 1987; Corney, 1990; Green & Pope, 1999; Ladwig, Marten-Mittag, Formanek, & Dammann, 2000; Lahelma, Martikainen, Rahkonen, & Silventoinen, 1999). Efforts have been made to identify specific attributes that result in these
Participants
The PATH Through Life Project is a longitudinal study of three age groups of residents living in Canberra (Australian Capital Territory) and the neighbouring town of Queanbeyan (New South Wales). Data for this study come from the first wave of this project and participants were drawn from two age groups—those aged from 40 to 44 years on 1 January 2000 and those aged 60–64 years on 1 January 2001—and were selected from the Australian Electoral Rolls for these two regions. Enrolment on these
Results
Of the 4140 participants, 51.8% were women and 48.6% were in the 60–64 year age-group. We found women participants reported both significantly poorer mental health (p<0.01) and physical health (p<0.01) compared with their male counterparts. Women also obtained significantly more GP services over this period: 2.71 (SD 2.67) compared with men's 2.14 (SD 2.37; p < 0.01). Preliminary analyses compared the SF-12 mental and physical health scores of men and women who obtained services and men and
Discussion
In this study, we explored the impact of non-health factors on men's and women's decisions to seek treatment from general practitioners. Participants in our community-based PATH project comprised 4140 adults who provided information on their self-assessed mental and physical well-being, lifestyle and psychosocial factors and for whom we had access to national insurance data on the number of GP services they had obtained during a 6 month period.
Our first hypothesis was that women would be likely
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank Karen Maxwell and the team of Centre for Mental Health Research interviewers for their assistance with this study. Funding was provided by Program Grant No. 179805 from the National Health and Medical Research Council.
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