Factors Associated with Willingness to Enter Long-term Care Facilities among Older Adults in Chengdu, China

The study was approved by the Sichuan University Institutional Review Board. All participants read a statement that explained the purpose of the survey and written informed consents have been received before being involved in the investigation.This cross-sectional study was conducted in the Hezuo community, one of six sub-districts within a recently developed urban district in Chengdu, Sichuan from January to March in 2016. There were a total of 8884 older people (aged 60 and above) in this community as of December 2015. A sample of 670 older people was randomly drawn from the community older adult population using computer “random numbers” generator. MeasuresThe in-person interview questionnaire contains measures on socio-demographics, willingness to enter long-term care facilities, general wellbeing index, and social support.<i> </i>We collected the following information: age, gender, marital status, education, occupation, income (monthly household income per capita), insurance, living condition, being sick in the two weeks before the survey, number and type of chronic diseases, and any hospitalization in the prior year.The interviewer first defined long-term care facilities as institutions that integrate medical and social services in senior care facilities. Second, the interviewer asked whether the respondents are aware of the concept. For those who were not aware, explanations were made to inform them. Respondents were then asked: “Are you willing to enter into one of these facilities to receive integrated medical and social services in the future?” If the answer is “Yes”, additional questions were asked regarding: the most important aspect of choosing a long-term care facility, expectation of travel distance from one’s home to the facility, expectation of monthly costs of the services, expectations of the caregivers, medical staff, services, and quality provided, family support of such care arrangement.<i> </i>The WHO-5 items were used to describe the general wellbeing of the respondents about their rating of five statements considering the last 14 days.The Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS) assesses the level of overall social support that each subject received. All survey data were entered into EpiData 3.0. Statistical analyses were carried out using the IBM SPSS version 21.0. We used Pearson’s χ2 to examine differences in categorical variables. Multivariate logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between the independent variables.