Attitudes Toward Alzheimer's Care-Seeking Among Korean Americans: Effects of Knowledge, Stigma, and Subjective Norm

Early detection of Alzheimer's disease (AD) ensures that affected individuals and their caregivers can make appropriate plans for health care needs, yet many ethnic minorities delay seeking care for AD until the disease has progressed. This study examined attitudes toward care-seeking for AD among Korean Americans (KAs) and identified factors affecting their attitudes.

A cross-sectional survey was used to collect data from 234 KA adults. We conducted hierarchical regression analyses to examine the effects of sociocultural background (age, gender, education, cultural orientation), AD knowledge and exposure to AD, and beliefs about AD (stigma of pity, shame, and public avoidance) and AD care (subjective norm) on KAs' attitudes toward seeking AD care from primary care physicians (PCPs) and AD specialists. We also tested whether knowledge of AD moderated the impact of beliefs about AD and AD care on KAs' attitudes toward seeking AD care.

For both PCPs and AD specialists, the subjective norm had the strongest effect on KAs' attitudes toward care seeking (β = 0.557 for PCPs, β = 0.360 for specialists). Effects of stigma beliefs disappeared in the presence of the subjective norm. AD knowledge moderated the impact of the subjective norm on the attitudes toward both PCPs (β = -1.653) and specialists (β = -1.742).

The significance of the subjective norm in KAs' attitudes toward AD care-seeking underscores the importance of public education, and our study suggests that increasing AD knowledge could facilitate a change in public attitudes toward seeking AD care.