장기요양보험 수급자와 비수급자의 의료이용 및 의약품 처방 양상 비교

Abstract

Older adults who receive long-term care (LTC) services are expected to differ from older adults who do notreceive such services. These differences are expected in healthcare utilization and drug prescription, as older adults in LTCservices, have more difficulty in daily life. This study aimed to compare the differences in healthcare utilization and drugprescription between LTC beneficiaries and those who do not receive LTC services. Using the senior cohort from theNational Health Insurance Service, LTC beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries were defined, and their patterns of healthcareutilization and drug prescription were analyzed for the year 2015. The total number of participants in the study was 239,873,and the number of LTC beneficiaries was 20,619 (8.6%). For LTC beneficiaries, the average number of hospitalizationsper year was two, total hospitalization days 70, and the number of outpatient visits per year 28.8, and for non-beneficiaries,these were 1.7, 49, and 34.9, respectively. LTC beneficiaries had more frequent hospitalizations, longer hospital stays, andfewer outpatient visits. In terms of drug prescription for LTC beneficiaries, the average number of prescription days was280, the number of the daily pills was 4.7, and total prescription days per year per prescription were 22.9, and for nonbeneficiaries,these were 277, 3.8, and 18.1, respectively. LTC beneficiaries took more daily pills and had longerprescriptions than non-beneficiaries. LTC beneficiaries showed differences in healthcare utilization and drug prescriptionpatterns in comparison to non-beneficiaries. Further research based on the characteristics of LTC beneficiaries is needed.