Table 4.

The effect of age group and visiting year on the visit and examination intervals

	Random effects, visit interval	Fixed effects, visit interval	Random effects, exam interval	Fixed effects, exam interval
	n/observations B(95% CI)	n/observations B(95% CI)	n/observations B(95% CI)	n/observations B(95% CI)
All age groups	190,811/657200	190,811/657200	128,329/337242	128,329/337242
< 18 years	ref		ref
18–64 years	0.13(0.13–0.14)		0.50(0.49–0.51)
65+ years	−0.03(−0.04−−0.03)		0.16(0.15–0.18)
Visiting year (per 5 years)	0.02(0.01–0.02)	0.01(0.00–0.01)	0.13(0.12–0.13)	0.20(0.19–0.21)
Only < 18 years	78,560/289819	78,560/289819	72,812/214232	72,812/214232
Visiting year (per 5 years)	0.02(0.02–0.03)	-0.03(−0.04--0.03)	0.16(0.15–0.16)	0.19(0.19–0.20)
Only 18–64 years	109,527/307174	109,527/307174	55,607/103482	55,607/103482
Visiting year (per 5 years)	−0.02(−0.02--0.01)	0.01(0.01–0.02)	0.07(0.06–0.08)	0.15(0.13–0.16)
Only 65+ years	20,691/60207	20,691/60207	10,001/19528	10,001/19528
Visiting year (per 5 years)	0.05(0.03–0.06)	0.05(0.04–0.07)	0.07(0.05–0.10)	0.20(0.16–0.24)

Patients with at least two visits or examinations included. Second visit in 2005 or later. Only observations with an interval of 4 or less years included

Visiting year is a continuous and age group a categorical predictor

All coefficients significant at p < 0.01 level

B = change in years per one unit change in the predictor