Study On Health Condition And Community Demand Of Empty-nest Aging Population In An Urban Community Of Jinan City

With the aging process speeding up in our country and the family structurefundamentally changing, the empty-nest phenomenon becomes more seriously. Due tolack of economic support, emotional support, and health care, etc, the empty-nest agingpopulation had different degree of body disease. The community care and healthservices demand were relatively stronger. The18th National People’s Congress’s reportpointed out that the government should solve the most concerned, direct, realisticbenefit question for people, make new progress on improving access to medical careand the elderly taken care of, and try to make people live a better life. Based on this, byanalyzing health status and the social demand of the empty-nest aging population, thisstudy aims to set up health management and pension model, to ensure the basic demandand promote social stability and harmony. Research Objective：To understand thehealth situation of city empty-nester aging population in Jinan, compare the healthdifferences between the empty-nester and non-empty-nester aging population, andexplore health management and community demand patterns. Data and methods：From October to December2011, empty nester family information was obtained fromthe residents’ committees of Yingshi Street in Jinnan firstly. We randomly have chosen324empty-nest aging populations who conformed to the survey standard to doquestionnaire survey, in accordance with210non-empty-nest aging populations nearby.We conducted the statistical description and inference with SPSSl7.0statistical software,mainly including descriptive analysis, chi-square test, and two sample t test method. Results:1. Physical health. In Jinan urban, the two weeks prevalence rate ofempty-nest aging population was62.8%, higher than that of non-empty-nest agingpopulation (49.0%)(2=9.82，P=0.002). The chronic disease prevalence rate was85.3%,higher than that of non-empty-nest aging population (72.4%)(2=13.35，P=0.000).High blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, cerebrovascular disease and theintervertebral disc disease were common chronic disease among empty-nest agingpopulation. The daily life activities ability score of empty-nest aging population was38.6, significantly higher than that30.6of the empty nest old (t=21.59, P=0.000).2.Psychological health. The k10score of empty-nest aging population was25.3, higherthan that21.5of non-empty-nest aging population（t=10.57，P=0.000. Gender, age,marital statuses, educational level, whether sick were the main factors that influencedthe psychological status.3. Health service utilization. The two-week visiting rate was27.9%. The non-two-week visiting rate was38.8%(78/201). The economic difficultiesand disability were main reasons of non-two-week visiting. Among patients, there were27.8%to require hospitalization. The hospitalization rate was20.0%. There were28.1%who should be hospitalized in hospital. The ratio of economic difficulties issignificantly higher than that of non-empty-nest aging population.4. The communityneeds. The most of empty-nest and non-empty-nest aging population like to live in themixed community. There were differences about the care or service delivery approach,providing services, and there wasno difference about expected activities, providingfacility requirements, and construction of elderly activity center. There was87.7%empty-nest aging population who wanted the door-to-door service, and the healtheducation demand69.1%(224/324). Conclusions and recommendations: Thehealth condition of empty-nest aging population was worse. There were prominentproblems on the body health, daily activity ability and psychological health. Healthservice use rate is lower. The economic difficulties and disabled mobility were mainreasons. The empty-nest aging population had relatively higher requirements to social assistance, community service, hoped to establish elderly activity center to provide richcultural entertainment activities. They hoped that community health service institutionscould provide door-to-door service, and could obtain general medical and healtheducation at home. Therefore, the government should increase empty-nest agingpopulation special funds investment, improve infrastructure services, strengthencommunity endowment functions, and actively explore endowment patterns at home.