Associations between healthcare use and migration background in persons with dementia: A cohort study in the Netherlands

Background

: Qualitative research shows barriers in access to healthcare for persons with a migration background, possibly leading to healthcare inequalities. We aimed to compare healthcare use between older community-dwelling persons with a migration background and native Dutch persons with dementia.

Methods

: Observational cohort study using electronic health records of NIVEL Primary Care Database (2013–2014) linked to nationwide administrative registries managed by Statistics Netherlands. We included all community-dwelling persons with dementia in the Netherlands aged 65 years and older. Negative binomial and logistic regression analyses were conducted to assess differences in healthcare use outcomes. The largest migrant groups (persons born in Surinam, Turkey and Morocco) were studied separately.

Results

: 138,864 persons with dementia were included in the study, whereof 3,991 persons with a migration background and 132,477 native Dutch persons. Moroccan-born persons showed 1.46 higher odds of having an unplanned hospital admission compared to native Dutch persons (95 % Confidence Interval [CI] 1.22–1.74). Persons with a migration background used less professional home care (Odds Ratio [OR] 0.55, 95 %CI 0.51–0.59), and received less home visits from their general practitioner (OR 0.50, 95 %CI 0.43–0.57) than native Dutch persons. Moroccan-born persons had more often an out-of-hours general practitioner consultation compared to native Dutch persons (Incidence Rate Ratio 1.36, 95 %CI 1.18–1.57).

Conclusions

: We found significant quantitative differences in healthcare use between persons with a migration background and native Dutch persons with dementia. Further research is needed to gain insight into the reasons of these differences, with consideration of specific migration background.