People who frequently attend their GP are more likely to be medical card patients, female and over the age of 65, a new study has shown.

According to researchers in Galway, a relatively large proportion of GP consultations involve frequent attenders. These patients also account for a high number of referrals and prescriptions.

"Frequent attenders have also been found to be less likely to try self-care and more likely to use other health services," they noted.

However until now, there has been no generally accepted definition of frequent attendance, so the researchers set out to obtain a statistical description of patient attendance and to determine the role age, gender and medical card status play.

They looked at two GP practices in north Clare over a 12-month period. Four GPs were working in the practices and over that time, they dealt with over 23,400 visits from 3,883 patients. This is an average of 105 patients per working day or 35 patients per full-time GP.

As just over 3,800 patients were seen, this gave an average of six GP visits per patient per year. However, an analysis of the statistics revealed that frequent attenders were those who visited their GP at least eight times a year.

"Analysis of the data also found that the patient factors of female gender, having a medical card and being in the older than 65 age group were associated with a high level of attendance in primary care," the researchers said.

They noted that while these findings are consistent with existing research in this area, to their knowledge, this is the first such published data from an Irish context.

They said that further studies in this area should look at factors which relate to ‘temporary and persistent frequent attendance, particularly modifiable factors such as body mass index (BMI)'. This, they added, could lead to the development of targeted interventions to address these patients.

The research was carried out by Dr Marc O'Malley of University College Hospital Galway and Liam Glynn, a senior lecturer in general practice at NUI Galway. Their study appears in Forum, the Journal of the Irish College of General Practitioners.