Patient Age and Satisfaction With Home Care

Abstract

Hawaii's Medicaid-sponsored comprehensive home care program serves disabled people of all ages. A client survey explored the relationship between age and satisfaction with services. Most younger clients had become disabled through accidents, while older clients were disabled from multiple chronic conditions. Although satisfaction ratings were generally high, a statistically difference between ratings by age group occurred with the youngest patients expressing the least amount of satisfaction. Reasons for these findings and implications for program operation are discussed.

Decreased Home Health Use: Does It Decrease Satisfaction?

“…These results also hold true for home care patients (Hall, Baird, and Elliston 1981;Braun, Goto, and Lenzer 1987;Laferriere 1993;OIG 1995).…”

“…Most studies report high levels of patient satisfaction with medical care (Adler 1995;Hulka et al 1975;Patrick, Scrivens, and Charlton 1983;Abramowitz, Cote, and Berry 1987;Davis and O'Brien 1996). These results also hold true for home care patients (Hall, Baird, and Elliston 1981;Braun, Goto, and Lenzer 1987;Laferriere 1993;OIG 1995).…”

“…Four variables that do seem to show consistent results are age, disability, perceived health status, and provider interpersonal skills. Levels of satisfaction are generally found to be lower for younger patients than older patients (Linn and Greenfield 1982;Aday, Fleming, and Andersen 1984;Cleary and McNeil 1988;Aharony and Strasser 1993;Hall and Dornan 1990), for patients who are more disabled (Patrick, Scrivens, and Charlton 1983;Rosenbach, Adamache, and Khandker 1995;Linn, Linn, and Stein 1982;Braun, Goto, and Lenzer 1987), and for those with poorer selfreported health status (Linn and Greenfield 1982;Rosenbach, Adamache, and Khandker 1995;Cleary and McNeil 1988). Provider interest and interpersonal skills positively affect satisfaction levels (Cleary and McNeil 1988;Aharony and Strasser 1993;Ware, Davies-Avery, and Stewart 1978;Hulka et al 1975;Aday, Fleming, and Andersen 1984;Shortell et al 1977).…”

“…While a number of studies have examined patient satisfaction with medical care, relatively little work has been done specifically in the area of patient satisfaction with home care. Many of the studies that have been done rely on fairly small sample sizes, focusing on small-scale surveys of specific population groups (Hall, Baird, and Elliston 1981;Braun, Goto, and Lenzer 1987;Laferriere 1993). Two other studies with larger sample sizes have explored the impact of increased provision or contraction of home health services on beneficiary satisfaction for CMS demonstration projects (Kemper 1988;Chen 2000).…”