Tennstedt S L, Crawford S L, McKinlay J B
Institute for Studies on Aging, New England Research Institute, Watertown, MA 02172.
Milbank Q. 1993;71(4):601-24.
The focus on rising costs of long-term care now encompasses community as well as institutional care. Policy makers cite the potential impact of changing social trends on informal caregivers' availability to continue as the main source of care and the possibility that formal services will then replace this informal care. They fear that families will relinquish their caregiving role if publicly funded home care services are available. Longitudinal data from a sample of disabled elders were used to investigate the substitution of formal services for informal care over a seven-year period. The substitution that was detected could be traced to the limited availability of informal care, and it represented a temporary change in the informal care pattern rather than a permanent replacement for it. Instead, use of formal services has supported the elderly person's continued residence in the community.
当前，对长期护理成本不断上升的关注涵盖了社区护理和机构护理。政策制定者指出，社会趋势的变化可能会影响非正式护理人员继续作为主要护理来源的可能性，以及正式服务随后取代这种非正式护理的可能性。他们担心，如果有公共资助的家庭护理服务，家庭将放弃其护理角色。来自残疾老年人样本的纵向数据被用于调查七年内正式服务对非正式护理的替代情况。所发现的替代情况可归因于非正式护理的可获得性有限，它代表了非正式护理模式的暂时变化，而非对其的永久替代。相反，正式服务的使用支持了老年人继续居住在社区。
