ABSTRACT
Purpose@#The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the transition experiences of the elderly from long-term care hospitals to their homes. @*Methods@#The participants were eight elderly medicaid beneficiaries, who had been the subjects from the community care project in Korea. The data were collected with one-on-one interviews from April to November in 2020, and analyzed by phenomenological steps. @*Results@#The seven themes derived in this study were ‘Space to escape’, ‘Reliable supporter opened the way to discharge’, ‘Comfortable life at home’,‘Obstacles to independent life’, ‘Struggling to live alone’, ‘Fence for community life’, and ‘Energizing in daily life’ @*Conclusion@#The results revealed the positive aspects of Community Care program in Korea. However, it is suggested that active communication between hospitals and community care institutions, and improvement of home environment to live in the community before discharge should be required. And system revision is needed to adjust activity in their home and support health problems of the elderly in the early stage of discharge. The results of this study can be referred to as the foundation of transitional care for the elderly.
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of health literacy and self-care performance on health care utilization of medicaid elderly.METHODS: A total of 203 medicaid elderly over 65 and living in B-metropolitan city were interviewed. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficients and Hierarchical Multiple regression.RESULTS: The average score of the health literacy was 7.88±2.84 out of 12. The average score of self-care was 3.26±0.77 points on the 5 point scale. The frequency of health care utilization by the subjects was 6.65±5.25 a month. The health literacy and self-care performance showed a statistically significant positive correlation. The health literacy and self-care performance showed a statistically significant negative correlation with health care utilization. The factors affecting health care utilization of the subjects were self-care performance, health literacy, and religion, and the explanatory power was 25%.CONCLUSION: The results indicate that the self-care performance, health literacy, religion are significant factors of health care utilization in medicaid elderly. Therefore, it is necessary to develop strategies to improve their self-care performance and health literacy for reasonable health care utilization. Also, it is necessary to provide the elderly with correct information about medical use from accessible religious institutions, senior community center, and welfare centers.