Association of mobility limitations with health care satisfaction and use of preventive care: a survey of Medicare beneficiaries.

Objective: To examine the association between satisfaction with health care, the use of preventive health care, and mobility limitation.
Design: Cross-sectional analysis of survey data.
Setting: Community.
Participants: A total of 12,769 people, age greater than 65, who participated in the 2001 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey.
Interventions: Not applicable.
Main Outcome Measures: Self-report of mobility limitation, satisfaction, and use of preventive health care (immunizations, cancer screening). Sampling weights were used in all analyses, including logistic regression for survey data, to calculate estimates for a Medicare population of 31 million.
Results: After controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, Medicare beneficiaries with mobility limitations were significantly more dissatisfied with their health care compared with beneficiaries without mobility limitations. Receipt of preventive care did not differ for those with and without mobility limitation on some preventive services.
Conclusions: Mobility limitation is highly associated with dissatisfaction with health care among older adult beneficiaries. Although Medicare beneficiaries may receive similar rates of preventive care, those with mobility limitation may have more difficulty accessing services and be more dissatisfied with their health care in general.