CONSULTATIONS WITH HEALTH PROFESSIONALS

By regularly monitoring their health, people may help prevent illness or injury. Consultations with health professionals may assist in many ways, including:

• the monitoring of lifestyle risk factors;
• the treatment and management of long-term health conditions and short-term illness or injury; and
• the maintenance of good health.

In 2014-15, around 21.0 million people, or 91.5% of all Australians, had consulted at least one health professional in the last 12 months. This was a similar rate to 2011-12 (91.1%). GPs were the most commonly visited health professional with over 8 in 10 people (85.2%) seeing a GP in the last 12 months. Almost half of all Australians had consulted a dentist (46.8%), while slightly more than one-third had consulted a specialist (34.5%). The proportion of Australians who had consulted other health professionals (i.e. other than GPs, dentists and specialists) in the last 12 months had increased from 20.6% in 2011-12 to 27.5% in 2014-15. Just over 1 in 20 Australians (5.9%) had not consulted a GP within the last 2 years, while less than 1 in 100 (0.5%) had never been to a GP.

Women were more likely than men to have consulted a health professional in the last year (94.4% compared with 88.7% respectively). This difference between men and women existed for consultation with GPs, specialists, dentists and other health professionals.

As would be expected, older Australians were more likely than were younger Australians to consult health professionals. Almost all people aged 65 years or over (96.2%) had consulted a GP in the last 12 months, compared with around 8 in 10 people aged 15-24 years (78.1%). They were also more than twice as likely as this younger age group to have consulted a specialist (58.0% compared with 25.2%). However, dentist consultations were generally constant across age groups.





People living in the top 20% most disadvantaged areas (according to SEIFA Index of Relative Socio-Economic Disadvantage) were less likely than those living in the 20% least disadvantaged areas to have seen a dentist (36.9% compared with 59.4% respectively) or a specialist (32.2% compared with 38.4% respectively) in the last 12 months. However, the rate of consultations with GPs was similar (85.6% and 86.2% respectively).





People living in inner, outer regional or remote areas of Australia were less likely than those in major cities to have visited a dentist in the last 12 months (42.1% compared with 48.7% respectively). They were also less likely to have visited a GP in the last 12 months (83.1% compared with 86.0%). However since 2011-12 there have been increases in the proportion of persons living in outer regional or remote areas who have accessed a specialist in the last 12 months (33.6% from 27.6%) and any other health professional in the last 12 months (27.3% from 16.4%).

In 2014-15, almost 1 in 3 Australians (29.2%) had discussed lifestyle issues with a GP. The most common issues discussed with GPs were 'reaching a healthy weight' (13.6%), 'eating healthy food or improving diet' (11.2%) and 'increasing physical activity' (9.5%). Discussion with a GP of these issues, i.e. those relating to physical activity, diet and weight, tended to be most common among people aged 45-74 years, as opposed to other ages. 'Safe sexual practices' were discussed with a GP by 1 in 10 people aged 15-24 (9.6%), while 1 in 10 people (10.1%) aged 25-34 years had discussed 'Family planning'.