Table 1.
Characteristics of the study population and rate of occurrence of each of the investigated outcomes
| No. (%) | All-cause death | Hospitalization | Non-scheduled hospitalization | Primary care visits | ER utilization | Medication use | Admission to skilled nursing facility | Expenditure | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gender | |||||||||
| Male | 3,022,978 (48.6) | 1.09 | 8.17 | 4.09 | 4.53 | 3.63 | 4.15 | 0.79 | 6.13 |
| Female | 3,201,338 (51.4) | 1.04 | 9.70 | 4.80 | 5.93 | 4.73 | 6.35 | 1.00 | 5.70 |
| Age group | |||||||||
| 18–44 | 2,654,178 (42.6) | 0.05 | 4.94 | 2.70 | 1.33 | 3.89 | 0.57 | 0.02 | 1.92 |
| 45–64 | 2,097,515 (33.7) | 0.34 | 6.92 | 2.56 | 3.26 | 2.88 | 3.13 | 0.22 | 5.00 |
| 65–74 | 729,565 (11.7) | 1.19 | 14.61 | 5.80 | 8.50 | 4.68 | 11.48 | 1.07 | 10.56 |
| 75–84 | 476,422 (7.7) | 3.64 | 22.49 | 11.89 | 19.19 | 7.84 | 21.32 | 3.82 | 17.28 |
| > 84 | 266,636 (4.3) | 11.90 | 25.34 | 19.89 | 26.17 | 9.73 | 23.50 | 9.27 | 19.64 |
| Socioeconomic status1 | |||||||||
| High | 59,250 (1.0) | 0.54 | 3.31 | 1.55 | 0.96 | 0.93 | 1.66 | 0.12 | 2.62 |
| Moderate | 1,988,779 (32) | 0.65 | 7.01 | 3.05 | 3.10 | 2.50 | 3.30 | 0.42 | 4.21 |
| Low | 3,948,857 (63.4) | 1.27 | 9.87 | 5.10 | 6.23 | 4.85 | 6.08 | 1.13 | 6.55 |
| Very low | 227,430 (3.7) | 1.16 | 11.66 | 6.36 | 8.09 | 8.43 | 9.58 | 1.18 | 10.38 |
1Stratified into four categories of pharmaceutical co-payment: Very low (unemployed or recipient of social rescue aids), low (annual income < 18,000 €), moderate (annual income 18,000 to 100,000 €), and high (annual income > 100,000 €)
Categorical outcomes were transformed to binary variables using the 95th percentile of the given variable among the target population as cut-off: admission to a skilled nursing facility for intermediate care (i.e., one or more admissions), admission to emergency room (i.e., more than two admissions), visit to primary care services (i.e., more than 21 visits), medication use (i.e., dispensation of more than 13 drugs belonging to different 5-digit group of the anatomic-therapeutic classification), expenditure (.i.e., healthcare cost above 4315.1 €)