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The primary purpose of this study was to determine if the literature on stress and coping could be useful for studying patterns of physician utilization among older adults. It was hypothesized that elderly people with strong social support systems would be less likely to visit a physician in times of high stress than would older adults who receive less social support. This hypothesis was partially confirmed by the data. The second goal of this study was to determine whether or not locus of control beliefs buffer the effects of stress on physician use. The data suggest that elderly persons with internal locus of control beliefs make fewer visits to the doctor's office in times of high stress than do those individuals with an external locus of control orientation. It should be noted that this study did not assess changes in physician use through time and that information on stress was gathered 18 months prior to the gathering of information on physician utilization.
Neal Krause (Tue,) studied this question.