Health Services Utilization Among Chinese American Older Adults: Moderation of Social Support With Functional Limitation

Abstract

In this study, we aimed to examine the relationship of social support with hospitalizations and emergency department (ED) visits among older Chinese adults in the United States and its possible mechanism. This was a secondary analysis of data from the Population Study of Chinese Elderly (July 2011-June 2013; N = 3,157). After adjusting for demographic, clinical, and functional covariates in logistic regression analyses, significant interaction between social support from spouse and the number of functional limitations in (instrumental) activities of daily living was related to lower odds of hospitalization (odds ratio [OR] = 0.97 [0.95-0.99]) and ED visits (OR = 0.98 [0.96-0.99]). This finding suggests that among older Chinese American adults with functional limitations, more spousal support was related to lower odds of hospitalizations and ED visits. Future studies should comprehensively measure social support (e.g., content, amount) from other sources and investigate how unnecessary acute health service utilization in this population may be reduced by social support interventions.

Тhe impact of the Covid-19 epidemic on older adults’ experiences with healthcare services

“…Furthermore, higher depressive symptoms were found to be associated with increased outpatient resource utilization and more visits to family physicians (Bentur and Heymann, 2020). Finally, in the current study coping resources included optimism (an internal resource) and social support (an external resource), as these coping resources were found to be significantly associated with health services consumption (DeViva et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2020).…”

Influence of social support on limitation in daily living among older persons in Malaysia

“…Another study conducted in Ireland and the USA found similar results, which stated that not having a spouse or not living with a spouse is strongly associated with impairment in functional abilities 21,22 . There is also a study in China that found that older persons who are not married showed significant functional decline in old age 23 . On the other hand, another study in China showed that married older persons with children are at higher risk of limitation in daily living because they have to cope with their adult children's demands, which might exceed their coping resources 24 .…”

“…21,22 There is also a study in China that found that older persons who are not married showed significant functional decline in old age. 23 On the other hand, another study in China showed that married older persons with children are at higher risk of limitation in daily living because they have to cope with their adult children's demands, which might exceed their coping resources. 24 However, the influence of social support on activity limitation in our study was independent of the presence of a spouse, unlike the findings of the above two studies.…”

Barriers and facilitators to health-care access by older Chinese migrants in high-income countries: a mixed-methods systematic review

“…The one quantitative study from Canada examined help-seeking attitudes and mental health-care utilisation; it did not find a significant association (Tieu and Konnert, 2014). Six studies analysed the same dataset, the Population Study of Chinese Elderly in Chicago (PINE study) (Dong and Liu, 2017;Wang et al, 2018;Guo et al, 2019;Hei et al, 2019;Kong et al, 2019;Wang et al 2022) and so had similar findings.…”