Why do elderly people seek professional home care? Methodologies compared

Abstract

In order to investigate which characteristics, besides physical limitations, of elderly people living at home contribute to the utilization of professional home care, a study was conducted in which 450 elderly people aged 55 and over, 123 with and 327 without professional home care, were interviewed. To obtain a selection for the interviews, a postal questionnaire, containing questions on functional status and care utilization, sent out to a random sample of the elderly people (55+) living at home (n = 2451), preceded the actual interviews. The oral interviews yielded the same information, plus an inventory of aspects of the mental status, the social network, the socio-economic status and the housing condition. Analysis was performed in three ways: bivariate analysis, logistic regression analysis and discriminant analysis. The bivariate analysis revealed that users of professional care were older, more often female and more often not married. Their social network was less extensive, as they received less informal care and lived alone more often. Besides they had more mental and financial problems. From the regression analysis it appeared that, in addition to the functional status, the amount of informal care and the household composition contributed to the utilization of professional home care. For the other characteristics inventoried, no independent association with the utilization of professional care could be established. With hindsight, it appeared that in this study long interviews hardly had additional value over postal questionnaires, in which the contribution of functional status and informal care to professional care was already discovered.

Living Arrangements and Health Status in Later Life: A Review of Recent Literature

“…Formal health services are generally paid and include professional nursing care, as well as personal care and housekeeping services. In general, there is a higher use of home‐based health care and supportive services such as meals on wheels among older persons living alone than among older persons living with others (Bowling, Farquhar, & Browne, 1991; Frederiks, te Wierik, van Rossum, Visser, Volovics, & Sturmans, 1992; Iliffe et al., 1992; Miller et al., 1996; Tennstedt, Chang, & Delgado, 1998; Wister, 1992). Outpatient psychiatric crisis intervention services were also used more often by rural older persons living alone than those living with others (Neese, Abraham, & Buckwalter, 1999).…”

Social networks, ethnicity and public home-care utilisation

“…Studies in several countries have underscored the positive correlation between a care-recipient's age and his or her use of home-care services. The frequency of utilisation of formal home-care has been generally found to rise with age (Branch et al 1981 ;Chappel 1992;Frederiks et al 1992;Stoddart et al 2002;White-Means 1997). Research findings also point to the greater utilisation by women than men (Frederiks et al 1992 ;Hanley and Weiner 1991;Kempen and Suurmeijer 1991).…”

Factors influencing home care nursing problems and nursing care

“…In this study, predictors of nursing problems and use focused on a single visit. Other home health researchers have focused on the total amount of home health services used, factors that affect patients' differential use of home health services, changes in home health service use patterns following an event, and descriptions of patients who use versus those who do not use home health services (Ballard & McNamara, 1983;Easton, Cogen, Fulcomer, 1991;Frederiks et al, 1992;Gornick & Hall, 1988;Kemper, 1992;Kornblatt, Fisher, & MacMillan, 1985;Leonard, Brust, & Sielaff, 1991). Thus, future work should clarify differences in results based on the ways the term "use of home health services" has been conceptualized.…”