According to Strain (1991), utilization of health services by the elderly (aged 60+ years) is, at least in part, a function of their perceptions of their need for these services and this perception of need is itself determined by patients' various health beliefs. For example, in her study of 743 elderly patients, Strain found that the utilization of health services was linearly related to two health beliefs: degree of medical skepticism; and belief in the value of health maintenance activities.
Similar findings have been reported by several researchers (Bauwens & Anderson, 1984; Hallal, 1982; Nemcek, 1990). Indeed, Ward (1987) has stated that the relationship of health beliefs to utilization of health services has been fairly well established by psycho-medical research. However, one area of the health beliefs/utilization of services relationship that has not been well examined is the extent to which the relationship is affected by other variables such as patient demographics.
Because the literature indicated an association between health beliefs and utilization of health services, it was decided to examine for this relationship in a sample of elderly COPD patients. COPD patients were selected because existing research (Johnson, 1988; Reed & Stanley, 1989) reported that COPD affects substantial numbers of elderly patients. Moreover, a review of this investigator's emergency registration log book revealed that 46 percent of patients over 65 years of age sought treatment, via unscheduled emergency room visits, for COPD.
The investigator's log book revealed that COPD was prevalent in emergency room visits which has a bearing on utilization of health services. Specifically, it suggests that patients were probably experiencing symptoms for a period prior to seeking treatment and only sought treatment after symptoms reached crisis proportions. This delay of treatment despite the appearance of symptoms was confirmed by log stat...