| Summary: | 碩士 === 長榮大學 === 護理學系碩士班 === 106 === Background: When Taiwan becomes a society with people living to a very old age, the demand for long term care services and housing for the elderly in the community will become one of the most important national issues. The government has actively promoted a 10-year long term care plan to provide accessible care for the community and to accomplish the goal of aging in peace and delaying disability.
Purpose: The aim of this study was to understand the impact of utilizing long term care service systems for the community-dwelling elders. This study also investigated the influences of personal predisposing characteristics, enabling factors, the needs of the elderly, utilization of community long term care services, family support, and social participation.
Method: This study was done using cross sectional research with a purposive sampling method. During the research, the cases were recorded from August 01to December 31, 2017. The objects of our study were the elders of the community center around the southern region of Taiwan. The number of samples was one hundred people. The self-structured questionnaires included 35 questions. The questionnaires consisted of questions about family support, social participation, the utilization and awareness of long term care service items, and personal basic data. SPSS 20.0 for Windows software was used for data statistical analysis and building code. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were performed for data analyses.
Results: The result of this study showed that the care needs of partially disabled community elders for home care services, shuttle services, and day care services were being met by more than 50%. However, the utilization of these services was less than 30%, even though these services met their demands. The top five items for long term care services that tended to be used by the elderly were home care services, shuttle services, home health care, day care services, and home based rehabilitation, sequentially. The result of this study revealed that family support for the partially disabled community elders, who have a higher usage for home care services, was lower with a statistically significant difference (t=-2.22, p= .03). In other words, the partially disabled community elders needed home care services less when they had more family support. With regards to the shuttle services, elders who tended to use them had a lower awareness of long term care services items (χ2=3.72, p= .05) and also had less family support (t=-3.23, p=< .01) with a statistically significant difference. The female elders used home health care than the males (χ2=5.05, p= .03), but the females had lower awareness of long term care service items (χ2=-7.14, p=< .01) and less family support (t=2.29, p= .02) with a statistically significant difference. With regards to the day care service and home based rehabilitation, the female semi-disabled community elders used these services more than the males (χ2=6.49, p= .01; χ2=4.39, p= .03, respectively). Furthermore, the elders who used day care services and home based rehabilitation had more awareness of the long term care service items (χ2=5.19, p= .02; χ2=5.91, p= .02, respectively) with a statistically significant difference.
Conclusion/implications: The conclusion of this study is to recommend that the government inspect the present long term care program for disabled community elders, and consider the availability of long term A-B-C care in order to promote effective prevention and delay of disability. We encourage the primary clinics to publicize and promote information about the long term care services program for the purpose of enhancing the awareness and proper usage of long term care services for Taiwanese southern community elders.
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