Association between diabetes-related and total primary healthcare utilisation
Our study showed that a high total primary healthcare utilisation profile was not generally associated with a high diabetes-related primary healthcare utilisation profile. Both age and the existence of related and unrelated comorbidity were determinants for having both a higher total and diabetes-related primary healthcare utilisation profile. This is in accordance with previous research that showed that both diabetes-related and diabetes-unrelated comorbidity increased the use of medical care in diabetes patients [19]. A recent review also showed a positive association between multiple chronic conditions and healthcare utilisation and expenditure [29]. These results indicate that total primary healthcare utilisation is not a good indicator for disease specific healthcare utilisation. When incorporating total utilised healthcare instead of diabetes-related healthcare utilisation only in a DMP, specific attention should be paid to the role of age and comorbidity, in particular as only these patient characteristics predict high healthcare utilisation for both total and diabetes-related care.