| It has been found that women in the general population rely more on the available level of informal support than on the described level of functional or cognitive impairment when choosing a long term care setting for a frail elderly person and for themselves. The present study was designed to examine whether formal care providers would make similar long term care choices with their experience with, and knowledge about, the frail elderly population.; One hundred and thirty formal care providers from a community care setting were asked to choose between community care and institutional care for a described frail elderly woman with different levels of functional impairment (moderate, severe), cognitive impairment (none, moderate, severe) and informal support (living with spouse, living alone with children nearby, living alone). Respondents were also asked to choose for themselves given the same circumstances.; Overall, the formal care providers expressed a general preference for community care with very few respondents (17.9%) reporting positive feelings about the possibility of receiving institutional care themselves. The preference for community care changed when the specific circumstances of the described frail elderly woman were considered. Similar to the choices of women in the general population, informal support was more important than level of impairment in the long term care choice when the frail elderly woman was described as living with spouse or living alone. The majority of respondents chose community care when the informal support arrangement was living with spouse and institutional care when the informal support arrangement was living alone, regardless of level of impairment. Formal care providers were much more likely to choose community care for themselves in the same circumstances as the described frail elderly woman as compared to their choices for the frail elderly woman. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
