Determinants of long-term home nursing care among people over 65 years of age

Introduction
With age comes increasing loss of efficiency, and thereby increasing dependence on others and increasing demand for nursing and care services

Aim of the research
To determine the factors of demand for long-term home nursing care among people over 65 years old.

Material and methods
The research was conducted on 504 subjects aged between 66 and 94 years. The qualified respondents for the long-term home-based nursing care scored no more than 40 points in Barthel’s Index. The following research tools were used: Barhel’s Index, IADL, GDS, AMTS, and an authorial interview questionnaire.

Results
For long-term home-based nursing care 15.67% (n = 79) of subjects were qualified; there were more women (n = 61) than men (n = 18) (p < 0.05). The age of respondents qualified for long-term nursing care was higher than the age of other test subjects (p < 0.001). Among subjects qualified for long-term home-based nursing care there were more people with incomplete primary education (p < 0.01) and a higher number of multi-diseases than with the rest (p < 0.01). Moreover, people qualified for long-term nursing care had worsened agility to perform complex life activities and worsened cognitive and emotional performance (p < 0.001) than people who did not qualify for such services.

Conclusions
The need for long-term nursing care was determined by progressing ageing, functional, emotional, and cognitive disorders, more frequent with women, people with low education, and multi-diseases.