Institutional care for people with disabilities in Taiwan: a national report between 2002 and 2007

The purposes of the present study were to describe the institutional care for people with disabilities included service types, service capacity and service utilization from 2002 through 2007 in Taiwan. Data were obtained from four ways of national data: (1) The condition of service institution for the physically and mentally disabled; (2) The physically and mentally disabled population by aged and grade; (3) The physically and mentally disabled population by cause; (4) Taiwan general population by age. We used percentage and overtime trend figures to examine the change in service capacity and the institutional care utilization of people with disabilities. The results revealed that the administrative prevalence of disabilities was increasing from 3.69% to 4.45% from 2002 to 2007 (increase rate 22.8%) in Taiwan. The number of disability institutions was increasing from 223 to 254 and yield an increasing rate 12.2%. The service capacity of institutional care was 16,664 persons in 2002, and it was increasing to 20,707 persons in 2007 (increase rate=24.3%). The cases admitted to institutional care were increasing from 12,611 in 2002 to 17,002 in 2007 (increase rate=34.8%). The male individuals with disabilities were more likely to admit to institutional care than the female cases. The data of the present study provided can be a basis for further discussion on the debate of institutional care or community care for people with disabilities in Taiwan community.