Intention to use physical and psychological community care services: a comparison between young‐old and older consumers in Korea

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine older peoples' intention to use community care services, based on official data from Statistics Korea. This study attempted to compare the intention to use community care services by young-old consumers (60-64 years) and older consumers (65 years and over) according to three factors of a behavioral model for health services: predisposing, enabling and need. The older consumer group had more need for overall community care services and experienced more health problems. A reverse pattern appeared in the mean difference of intention score for physical and psychological services. The groups that have a greater need for physical services are regarded as vulnerable groups: they are older with a lower education level, lower income, lower social status and more health problems. They have no other choice for meeting their physical health needs than to depend on the social care system. The vulnerable groups may also have mental health problems, but it seems that they do not have enough resources and cannot afford the care. The intention to use physical community care services was much higher for older consumers who have physical health problems. Conversely, the intention to use psychological community care services was much lower for the older consumer group if they have physical problems.

Stronger Impact of Interpersonal Aspects of Satisfaction Versus Tangible Aspects on Sustainable Level of Resident Loyalty in Continuing Care Retirement Community: A Case Study

“…Increased average life expectancy has heightened the need for a social system and long-term care services for older adults [1]. The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) estimates that nearly 70% of those in this aging category (above 65) will need some form of long-term care, including appropriate types of housing and supportive care services in senior health care communities [2].…”

“…For instance, CCRC residents may spend their time and enjoy social activities with other residents and employees while eating meals in a dining room, playing games in a lounge, or attending classes/exercises provided in the community. A CCRC essentially provides physical, medical, and mental health care services within one community [1]. In other words, many different types of third places are embedded within a CCRC.…”

Exploring the differentiated elderly service subsidies considering consumer word-of-mouth preferences

“…Evolutionary game theory overcomes the limitations of classical game theory as it assumes that players are bounded rational. In the real world context, consumers are typically bounded rational (Liu et al ., 2022b; Yi and Yang, 2017), particularly elderly consumers, who are more susceptible to internal or external influences when making decisions (Hwang, 2015). Furthermore, in the face of government subsidy policies, the decisions of different enterprises are not static but change over time; unlike the evolutionary game approach, classical game theory approaches have difficulty capturing this change (Mai et al ., 2023; Hafezalkotob et al ., 2023).…”

“…Among elderly consumers, preferences are influenced by various factors such as health status, financial conditions and cognitive abilities. Some elderly consumers prioritize basic Elderly service subsidies care needs and affordability, whereas others place greater emphasis on word-of-mouth and service quality (Hwang, 2015). These heterogeneous preferences would influence consumers' choices in elderly service enterprises (Cheung and Thadani, 2012;Qahri-Saremi and Montazemi, 2019).…”