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01-08-2005 | Original Article

Minor Life Events as Predictors of Medical Utilization in Low Income African American Family Practice Patients

Auteurs: Phillip J. Brantley, Gareth R. Dutton, Karen B. Grothe, Jamie S. Bodenlos, John Howe, Glenn N. Jones

Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Behavioral Medicine | Uitgave 4/2005

Abstract

This study assessed the ability of minor life events to predict medical utilization among 141 low-income, predominantly African American family practice patients. Subjects completed one year of stress assessments including major and minor life events. Four years of prospective medical utilization was collected, including outpatient, inpatient, and emergency department visits. Hierarchical regressions were conducted to assess the predictive value of minor life events for utilization, after controlling for demographic variables and major life events. The impact of minor life events was a significant predictor of outpatient utilization, accounting for 3.6% of the variance. Minor life events were unrelated to emergency department and inpatient visits. The relationship between minor life events and some types of utilization suggests traditional stress management techniques may be beneficial in reducing utilization for some patients, although such conclusions are tempered by the modest relationship between stress and utilization.

vorige artikel Depressive Symptoms Among Older Adults: Long-Term Reduction After a Physical Activity Intervention

Examining the plots of the distributions raised questions about the normality of the utilization data distributions and residuals. The utilization data can be considered as count data, and indeed the plots were suggestive of an over-dispersed Poisson distribution. The analyses were repeated using the generalized model for Poisson regression (SAS v8 Proc GenMod). As all the results remained substantially the same, the more easily interpretable regression results are presented here.

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Titel: Minor Life Events as Predictors of Medical Utilization in Low Income African American Family Practice Patients
Auteurs: Phillip J. Brantley
Gareth R. Dutton
Karen B. Grothe
Jamie S. Bodenlos
John Howe
Glenn N. Jones
Publicatiedatum: 01-08-2005
Uitgeverij: Springer US
Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Behavioral Medicine / Uitgave 4/2005
Print ISSN: 0160-7715
Elektronisch ISSN: 1573-3521
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-005-9001-z

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