Utilization of traditional Chinese medicine services and its influencing factors among home-based elderly care population in Zhejiang Province / 中华健康管理学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To analyze the utilization of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) services and its influencing factors among home-based elderly care population in Zhejiang Province.Methods:A multi-stage stratified cluster random sampling method was used to enroll 2 300 home-based elderly care population aged 65 years and over and lived in the local area for 6 months and above in Zhejiang Province. The basic characteristics, health status and behavior, TCM cultural literacy, TCM cognitive beliefs and TCM service usage of the subjects were collected by face-to-face questionnaires from July 15 to August 15, 2021, and 2 123 valid questionnaires were recovered. Unconditional logistic regression was applied to analyze the influencing factors of TCM service usage among home-based elderly care population.Results:The overall utilization rate of TCM services among home-based elderly care population in Zhejiang Province was 36.46% (774/2 123). The utilization rates of the 6 types of TCM from high to low was oral administration of traditional Chinese medicine (22.00%), external treatment with traditional Chinese medicine (15.12%), acupuncture treatment (11.96%), medicated diet conditioning (7.44%), constitution identification (7.40%) and exercise conditioning (4.57%). Home-based elderly care population lived in urban areas, had never been to school, with education of primary school or high school and above, suffered from chronic diseases, moderate activities or physical exercise, believed in TCM and had attended lectures on TCM knowledge were more inclined to use TCM services (all P<0.05); agricultural laborers, production and transportation workers and family laborers before retirement were less inclined to use TCM services (all P<0.05); women, those with medical insurance, those drinking alcohol and those with better TCM cultural literacy were more inclined to use 2 and more kinds of TCM services (all P<0.05). Conclusions:The utilization rate of TCM services among home-based elderly care population in Zhejiang Province is relatively high; gender, place of residence, education level, occupation before retirement, medical insurance, belief in TCM, and participation in TCM knowledge lectures are the main influencing factors of the use of TCM services among home-based elderly care population.