Assessment of medical home care needs in Turkish population

ABSTRACT

To determine the home healthcare needs of the elderly so as to develop proper home Healthcare Services. This descriptive study was carried out in a county of Kocaeli province-Turkey. Data was collected through a specially designed questionnaire through face to face interview technique. The data were analyzed by the computer using the SPSS package program. Chi-square test was used for the statistical analysis. This study showed that 14.6% of the population had at least one diagnosed disease. Among them, 1.8% was disabled, 4.1% was elderly and 1.1% of the households were in need of home care services. Home care needs were found to be low in this study. Its main cause was that elderly population was not aware of the availability of such a service in the country