Disablement process and the utilization of home care among non-institutionalized elderly people: contrasting results between cross-sectional and panel data.

PURPOSE In this article we studied the role of disablement process variables in home care utilization in a cross-sectional and in a panel approach among low-functioning community dwelling elderly people. METHODS We analysed data from a prospective follow-up study in The Netherlands (n = 555) and used three outcome variables: professional home care (yes or no) measured in the same year as the process variables (cross-sectional approach), professional home care (yes or no) also after 2 years (panel-approach: no change) and the new users of professional home care 2 years later (panel-approach: change). Process variables were categorized as pathology, functional limitations, disability, risk factors and psychosocial attributes. RESULTS Trajectories of home care utilization can be divided into an unchanging part and a changing part. Both parts are not predicted by the same process variables. For instance disability did not predict the new users of professional home care 2 years later, but correlated strongly with the stable users. The changing part was predicted by the beginning of the process of disablement (i.c. pathology). In addition, far most predictors could be considered as additive in stead of interactive. CONCLUSIONS It is important to take into consideration the design of the investigation in studying the disablement process: cross-sectional data and panel data provide different results.