Effects of preventive home visits to elderly people.

OBJECTIVES: To assess the effect of preventive home visits by public health nurses on the state of health of and use of services by elderly people living at home. DESIGN: Randomised controlled trial. SETTING: General population of elderly people in one of the southern regions of the Netherlands. SUBJECTS: 580 subjects aged between 75 and 84 years randomly allocated to intervention (292) or control (288) group. INTERVENTIONS: Four visits a year over three years in intervention group. Control group received no home visits. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Self rated health, functional state, well being, loneliness, aspects of the mental state (depressive complaints, memory disturbances), and mortality. Use of services and costs. RESULTS: Visits had no effect on the health of the subjects. In the group visited no higher scores were seen on health related measures, fewer died (42 (14%) v 50 (17%)), and community care increased slightly. In the control group more were referred to outpatient clinics (166 (66%) v 132 (55%)), and they had a 40% increased risk of admission (incidence rate ratio 1.4; 90% confidence interval 1.2 to 1.6). No differences were found in long term institutional care, and overall expenditure per person in the intervention group exceeded that in the control group by 4%. Additional analyses showed that visits were effective for subjects who initially rated their health as poor. CONCLUSIONS: Preventive home visits are not beneficial for the general population of elderly people living at home but might be effective when restricted to subjects with poor health.