Information About, and Attitudes Toward, the Use of Long-Term Care and Community-Based Alternatives Among Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites

摘要

This project examines Black, White, Puerto Rican and Mexican American's information and attitudes about long-term care community alternatives and institutional care. It hypothesized that groups would differ in extent and accuracy of knowledge about long-term care alternatives, and their attitudes toward this care. It was predicted that potential and/or actual service use would be significantly related to attitude and knowledge. Findings were based upon data from telephone interviews with 410 White, 399 Black, 402 Mexican-American, and 397 Puerto Rican respondents. Data was collected on demographic characteristics, attitudes toward and knowledge about availability, characteristics, sources of reimbursement, referral sources, and actual service use of in-home nurses, homemakers and nursing homes. Questions on Medicare and Medicaid eligibility were included. Data was analyzed using multiple regression, multivariate analysis, discriminant function analysis, and path analyses. This study was unable to find the hypothesized relationship between attitudes and knowledge about long-term care and potential or actual service use. The findings consistently show that many respondents in each of the ethnic groups had very limited information about service availability, functions of service providers, payment sources, Medicare and Medicaid eligibility, and referral sources. Information varied by ethnic groups.