Abstract
Objectives : To help develop strategies to cope with the changes arising from the rapid aging process by predicting the determining factors of intention to actual use of the charged long-term care services for elderly as perceived by the middle aged who play the major role of supports. Methods : Subjects were the parents (men 177, women 507) in their 40s of the students selected from a university of Busan city. A questionnaire survey was conducted for 4 weeks in October 2003 about the knowledge for long-term care service, the intention of actual use, and the preferences about the type of service suppliers. Data analysis was performed with frequency, chi-square test, and t-test using SPSS program (ver 10.0K), along with data mining using decision tree of Enterprise Miner V8.2 by SAS. Results : About half of the subjects (53.7%) had the actual experiences of elderly supports. Intentions to use the charged services were relatively high in home visiting nursing care service (40.1%) and long-term care facilities service (40.4%), and were influenced by previous knowledge about the services. The intentions were stronger in women, those with higher education, and those with greater income levels. Actual elderly supports were mostly (80%) done by women, and the perceived burdens for the supports were bigger in women and those of lower socioeconomic level. Desired charges were about 10,000 won for the bath service, 20,000 won for the rests services per day, and about 500,000 won for the long-term care facilities service per month. From the result of decision tree analysis, the job professionalism was the most important determining factor of intention to actual use of the services with validation as $63{\sim}71%$. Health and welfare mixed type facilities were preferred, and the most important consideration was the level of professionalism. Conclusions : Intention to actual use of the charged services was largely determined by the aspects of time and cost. Polices to increase the number of service suppliers and to decrease the burdens perceived by actual supporters were strongly recommended.
