Factors Associated with Utilization of Primary and Specialist Healthcare Services by Elderly Cardiovascular Patients in the Republic of Serbia: A Cross-Sectional Study from the National Health Survey 2013

The European Health Interview Survey (EHIS) is run every 5 years to examine how people experience and rank their health, how they care about their health, and to what extent they use the healthcare services. We identified the sub-population of special interest, i.e., cardiovascular disease (CVD) patients older than 65 years, in this cross-sectional study from the Serbian national survey of population health (2568 persons from a total of 15,999 subjects surveyed). We performed univariable and multivariable logistic regression analysis to assess the correlation between the healthcare system utilization and identified demographic, geographic, socio-economic, and self-rated factors. The most important factor for the utilization of the primary and the specialist healthcare services by elderly CVD patients is the region where one lives (Southern and Eastern Serbia OR = 2.44, 95% CI = 1.58-3.77/Belgrade OR = 1.75, 95% CI = 1.32-2.30). Age is another factor, where the 65 to 74 years old CVD patients utilize healthcare services the most. Higher education (OR = 1.80, 95% CI = 1.31-2.47), being a part of the highest Wealth Index group (OR = 1.62, 95% CI = 1.10-2.40), having very poor health status (OR = 3.02, 95% CI = 1.41-6.47), and presence of long-term illness (OR = 1.49, 95% CI = 1.16-1.92), play an important role in the utilization of the specialist care only.