Institute of Gerontology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, UPM, Malaysia.
Soc Sci Med. 2012 Sep;75(5):859-63. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.03.047. Epub 2012 May 9.
Unmet need as a significant factor affecting quality of life in later life has recently received considerable attention in gerontological research. The main aim of this study was to identify the prevalence, predicting factors, and negative consequence of unmet need among older Malaysians. The findings may be useful to reduce unmet need and the burden of its adverse consequence. The sample for this study consists of 400 functionally disabled elderly people aged 60 and over was obtained from a large national survey. Unmet need was operationally defined based on Manton's (1989) criteria. The findings from the present study showed about 18.0% of functionally disabled older Malaysians suffer from unmet need. Logistic regression revealed that gender (being male) and chronic health conditions are statistically associated with increased odds of unmet need after adjusting for other possible risk factors. Further results indicated that unmet need statistically increases odds of fall as a negative consequence of unmet need. The high prevalence rates of unmet need among disabled elderly men and chronically ill older persons suggest that policy makers should pay more attention to this vulnerable group to achieve good quality of life. The implications and limitations of the present study are discussed.
未满足的需求作为影响晚年生活质量的一个重要因素，最近在老年学研究中受到了相当大的关注。本研究的主要目的是确定马来西亚老年人未满足需求的流行率、预测因素和负面后果。这些发现可能有助于减少未满足的需求及其不良后果的负担。本研究的样本由来自一项大型全国性调查的 400 名功能障碍老年人组成。未满足的需求是根据 Manton（1989）的标准来操作定义的。本研究的结果表明，约有 18.0%的马来西亚功能障碍老年人存在未满足的需求。逻辑回归显示，在调整其他可能的风险因素后，性别（男性）和慢性健康状况与未满足需求的几率增加具有统计学关联。进一步的结果表明，未满足的需求会增加跌倒的几率，这是未满足需求的一个负面后果。残疾老年男性和慢性病老年人中未满足需求的高流行率表明，政策制定者应该更加关注这一弱势群体，以实现良好的生活质量。本文讨论了研究的意义和局限性。
