Patient views of over 75 years health assessments in general practice

Objective: To gain an understanding of the value and timeframe of health assessments (HA) from the perspective of the patient. Design: A self-completed questionnaire for patients who had undergone an over 75 years HA in a 12 month period excluding patients in residential or hospital care. Setting: General practice patient group in a regional Queensland town. Subjects: 65 general practice patients with a response rate of 45.1% (65/144). The respondents were 67.7% (44/65) female and 30.8% (20/65) male with one gender (1.5%) not recorded. Main outcome measure: Whether patients found the over 75 HAs beneficial, and whether they considered the annual timeframe for HAs appropriate. Results: The majority of respondents 77% (47/61) indicated that their most recent HA was beneficial even though few respondents had a new health concern identified at this HA. A majority (82.5%, 52/63) also supported the current time frame of annual HAs, although 12.7% (8/63) thought once every 2 years was acceptable. Conclusion: The findings confirm the benefits of health assessments in providing timely treatment for new health concerns and allaying anxiety in the elderly patients of this practice