Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, Vol 50, Issue 1 S4-12, Copyright © 1995 by The Gerontological Society of America
How does formal and informal community care affect nursing home use?
AM Jette, S Tennstedt and S Crawford
New England Research Institute, Watertown, Massachusetts.
We examined the effects of informal and formal community care on the 6-year
risk of nursing home use in a representative sample of disabled elders.
Increased risk was associated with receiving formal community services and
with caregiver burnout. There was a modest reduction in risk of using a
nursing home among those receiving greater amounts of informal care.
Elders with male caregivers were at over twice the risk of using a nursing
home than those with female caregivers, while those who lived with their
primary caregiver were at reduced risk. Increasing amount of formal
services was associated with reduced risk of nursing home use for
cognitively impaired older persons. Formal community services did not
buffer the effects of severity of disability on nursing home use.
Supplementing informal services with formal care was associated with
greater risk of using a nursing home. Future research should move beyond
testing global hypotheses regarding the protective effects of informal and
formal community care and examine the impact of specific types of community
care for specific subgroups of older persons on subsequent nursing home
use.
