Demand and supply of community-based care services for the elderly in China and its influencing factors / 中华老年医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the demand and actual supply of community-based care services for the elderly residents and the factors that affecting care mode for them in the context of rapid urbanization and population aging in China.Methods:Based on the cross-sectional data of the seventh China Longitudinal Survey on Health and Longevity(CLHLS)(2018), 15 854 elderly residents aged 60 and above were selected as the research population.Logistic regression method was used to analyze the patterns of community-based care services and their influencing factors.Results:Among 15 854 elderly residents, 6 912(43.60%)were male and 8 942(56.40%)were female.The results of activities of daily living(ADL)evaluation showed that 11 109 elderly residents could take care of themselves completely, and 3 889 elderly residents were disabled.The disability rate was 25.93%.The proportion of social services that elderly town dwellers expect the community to provide is higher than those living in cities and rural areas in terms of daily care, spiritual care, providing health care knowledge, and dealing with neighborhood disputes.From the perspective of social services actually provided by the community, in addition to providing home-based care, the proportion of community services available to the elderly living in towns and rural areas are similar, but significantly lower than the proportion of social services provided for elderly city dwellers.Age, marital status, residence, cultural differences, health status, source of life and living preference had significant impacts on the choice of care demand patterns.Those of older age( OR=2.29, 95% CI 1.04-5.03 for 70-79 years old; OR=2.94, 95% CI 1.38-6.25 for elderly 80 years old or above), having no spouse( OR=3.50, 95% CI 2.49-4.92), and with higher levels of disability( OR=4.24, 95% CI 3.12-5.77 for mild disability; OR=7.54, 95% CI 5.19-10.95 for moderate disability; OR=10.50, 95% CI 7.59-14.53 for severe disability)are more inclined to choose socialized care. Conclusions:In the process of rapid urbanization in China, the demands for care services of elderly living in towns has increased, but the actual care services provided for them by the communities are yet to be improved.Moreover, elderly town dwellers are still inclined to family care, the same as those of elderly rural dwellers.