High hospital readmission rates for patients aged ≥65 years associated with low socioeconomic status in a Swedish region: a cross-sectional study in primary care

AbstractObjective: There is a presumption that hospital readmission rates amongst persons aged ≥65 years are mainly dependent on the quality of care. In this study, our primary aim was to explore the association between 30-day hospital readmission for patients aged ≥65 years and socioeconomic characteristics of the studied population. A secondary aim was to explore the association between self-reported lack of strategies for working with older patients at primary health care centres and early readmission.Design: A cross-sectional ecological study and an online questionnaire sent to the heads of the primary health care centres. We performed correlation and regression analyses.Setting and subjects: Register data of 283,063 patients in 29 primary health care centres in the Region Orebro County (Sweden) in 2014.Main outcome measure: Thirty-day hospital readmission rates for patients aged ≥65 years. Covariates were socioeconomic characteristics among patients registered at the primary health care centre and el...