Trend study on the association between hospital admissions and the health of Dutch older adults (1995-2009).

Objectives: An increase in hospital admission rates in older people may reflect improved access to healthcare, but also declining health trends in the older population. Owing to a lack of individual-level data, the latter possibility has received little attention. The current study examines associations between health status and hospitalisation rates of older adults in the Netherlands.

Design: Observational individual-level data linked to hospital register data.

Setting: Data from 1995 to 2009 from the nationally representative Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam were linked to the Dutch Hospital Discharge Register.

Participants: A total of 5681 observations of 2520 respondents across 4 measurement points (each with a follow-up of 36 months; ages 65-88 years).

Outcome Measures: The contribution of health, demographic, psychosocial and lifestyle characteristics to time trends in hospitalisation was assessed in multivariate models.

Results: Between 1995 and 2009, the percentage with 1 or more overnight admissions (planned or acute) increased slightly from 38.1% to 39.7%. This was due to an increase in acute admission only (22.2-27.0%). Increased prevalences of chronic diseases, functional limitations and polypharmacy accounted for part of the observed increase in acute admissions. In addition, a more than doubled prevalence of day admissions over time was observed (12.3-28.3%), a trend that was unrelated to changes in individual characteristics.

Conclusions: This trend study showed a contribution of declines in population health to increases in acute hospital admissions. Since these declines did not provide a full explanation, healthcare reforms and increases in treatment possibilities in this period are likely to have contributed as well.