Assessment of Sensory Impairment and Health Care Satisfaction Among Medicare Beneficiaries

Abstract

Key Points Question What is the association between hearing, vision, or dual sensory impairment and dissatisfaction with health care among Medicare beneficiaries? Findings In this cross-sectional study including 10 783 Medicare beneficiaries, people with dual sensory impairment were more likely to report dissatisfaction with quality of care, communication from health care professionals, and access to care, and those with hearing and vision impairment were more likely to report dissatisfaction with the information given by health care professionals than those without sensory impairments. Meaning Addressing sensory impairment across health care settings via quality initiatives and environmental modifications may represent an area of intervention to improve health care satisfaction.

Association between dual sensory impairment and risk of mortality: a cohort study from the UK Biobank

“…when compared with those with single VI or HI [6][7][8]. Moreover, DSI is related to a higher risk of severe life-threatening consequences, including falls and accidental injury, and individuals with DSI also face difficulty accessing healthcare services [9][10][11]. The combined effects of reduced quality of life, increased comorbidities, barriers to accessing healthcare, and higher incidence of accidents may all contribute to an increased risk of mortality among adults with DSI.…”

General and Vulnerable Population’s Satisfaction With the Healthcare System in Urban and Rural Areas: Findings From the European Social Survey

“…The presence of vulnerabilities had a negative impact on healthcare system satisfaction. This finding may not be surprising [ 20 , 21 , 24 – 26 ], but the most fragile people being the least satisfied with their healthcare system indicates that European health systems are not completely fulfilling their mission. The biggest gap between non-vulnerable and vulnerable inhabitants’ satisfaction was found in big cities.…”

“…Citizens with incomes below the national median are more likely than those with higher incomes to be dissatisfied [20,21] and to experience health disparities [21][22][23]. Dissatisfaction [24][25][26] and health disparities [23, 27,28] have also been documented for many long-term health conditions. Instead, we do not know whether perception of healthcare quality [29,30] and healthcare system satisfaction [14,16,[31][32][33][34] are higher for people living in urban or rural areas.…”

The Effect of Dual Sensory Impairment and Multimorbidity Patterns on Functional Impairment: A Longitudinal Cohort of Middle-Aged and Older Adults in China

“…Firstly, SI was assessed by self-reported measures in this study. On the one hand, self-reported sensory impairment is valuable in capturing people's perception of their functional hearing and vision and suitable for illustrating the meaning of DSI for daily life (Assi et al, 2020;Hajek and Konig, 2020). On the other hand, self-reported impairments may be subject to bias because factors such as cognitive status, education, age, and/or individual disposition may contribute to the determination of self-reported impairments.…”