[Professional housekeeping aide for elderly persons. Needs, demand and beneficiaries].

Professional home help services (aide- menag ère) in France is one of the principal means to permit the disabled elderly to remain at home. For this reason, an evaluative study was conducted on existent needs of the inhabitants of one region: Upper-Normandy. The authors considered both demand and effective need among people concerned. At the time of the study (1979), 4.2% of the population 65 and older were beneficiaries of the service. The proportion of those who would have desired the service was then 14.7%--or 3.5 times higher. But the study of effective need provided a very different perspective: it concerned those unable to perform household tasks and also having no possibilities of help from the immediate family. If home assistance were limited to those not bedridden, having restricted ability to perform household tasks, and living alone, it would affect 17% of the elderly and would require 64,000 hours weekly, against 43,000 provided at the time of the survey. If other tasks were included (personal hygiene care, or care of the bedridden or of those unable to go out), the service would affect 24% of the population and would require 153,000 hours weekly. Based on the criteria applied, it appears that 20% of the service goes to those without effective need. Also, almost two-thirds of those needing the service state that they do not want it. The development of home help services in France must be considered in the framework of a global planning process of all services designed to enable the dependent elderly to remain at home.