Effects of the bio-psycho-social frailty dimensions on healthcare utilisation among elderly in Europe: A cross-country longitudinal analysis

Frailty represents an emerging challenge and has major implications for clinical practice, public health, and the sustainability of health systems. It is a geriatric condition, related to but distinct from disability and multimorbidity and characterized by a diminished physiological reserve of multiple organs. Despite limited consensus and evidence, it has been argued that cognitive and social aspects influence the condition. Therefore, we aim to provide evidence on the importance of taking a broader approach in defining frailty, by investigating the role of its physical, social, and psychological subdomains to predict healthcare utilisation in elderly Europeans. The study is based on the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), and uses 185,169 total observations from 12 European countries included in wave 4, 5, 6, and 8. The analysis investigates the influence of the physical frailty index (a proxy of the Frailty Phenotype definition), psychological and social frailty indexes (built to proxy the Tilburg Frailty Index) on the likelihood of hospitalisation and the number of doctor visits. We addressed missing values due to item non-response with fully conditional specification multivariate imputation and exploited the longitudinal structure of the data to control for time-fixed unobserved characteristics. In addition, our two multivariate models included regressors to correct for demand side factors (health status, socio-economic status, and behavioral risk) as well as for country-specific characteristics. Physical and psychological frailty positively influence the likelihood of hospitalisation (OR = 1.90 and OR = 1.31, respectively) and the number of doctor visits (IRR = 1.30 and IRR = 1.07), while social frailty reduces the two types of health services utilisation (OR = 0.53 and IRR = 0.90). The three frailty dimensions are relevant risk stratification factors in elderly Europeans, and health policies should focus more on the psycho-social aspects of this condition, as a strategy to both contain expenditures and avoid potential healthcare inequalities.