The increasing number of older people around
the world has been focused especially by health care
policy makers and workers in view of more budget
and work load which has to be increased due to the
fact that older people tend to suffer from various
degenerative disorders. Meanwhile, hospitalization is
not only the most expensive health care service, but
also inevitably leads to subsequent physical and
mental discomfort to the sick older patients and their
relatives alike. Getting to know the associated factors
of hospitalization of the older adults will shed light on
the priority setting of disease prevention that should
receive national attention as well as targeting at risk
older people to receive more medical care and support
to prevent hospitalization(1). Interestingly, older adults
at risk of heavy hospital use can be identified prospectively
through their responses to a brief, mailed,
self-administrated questionnaire(2). A mailed survey
also achieved a high response rate and gave rise to an effective model predictive of hospitalization even in
those who were older than