Factors Associated with Quality of Care Among Dependent Older Persons in the Community

Dependent older persons who are limited in their daily activities affect physical, mental, social ability needs help in the family and the community caregiving.

The study aimed to analyze the relationship between caregivers' characteristics and health conditions, social support, the burden of care, and the quality of respect for the dependent older persons.

The descriptive study design applies in using a Donabedian framework, including structure, process, and outcome with House's social support. The sample consists of 102 family caregivers currently caring older people with dependency in Bangkok, Thailand. Data were collected through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and care quality assessments through tested content validity from 3 health experts, which received a score of 0.97. Descriptive statistics and correlation coefficients were used to analyze the information and tested using Spearman's rank correlation; acceptable criteria were obtained before collecting the actual data.

The results showed that they were statistically significantly related to social support and quality of care. When considering each aspect, social support was associated with the quality of physical and psychological care. Resource social support was to relate the quality of medical and financial aspects. Social support of acceptance and appreciation is associated with quality, environmental, physical, psychological, human rights, and economic elements; information social support was significantly related to information supervision quality.

This study found that personal factors in age and comorbidity affect the burden of care in family caregivers. In addition, good social support will affect the quality of respect for the dependent older persons in psychological, medical, human rights, and financial dimensions. In particular, the appraisal support, incredible care, attentiveness, and dedication to care will result in a good quality of care in all areas except the quality of physical dimensions.