ACCESS TO CARE AND SUPPORT OF FRAIL COMMUNITY-DWELLING OLDER ADULTS

• Published in: Innovation in aging 2018-11, Vol.2 (suppl_1), p.447-447
• Main Authors: Fret, B, Verté, D, Consortium, D
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Abstracts
• ISSN: 2399-5300; 2399-5300
• DOI: 10.1093/geroni/igy023.1676

Universal access to healthcare has been set by the World Health Organization as a main goal for the post-2015 development agenda. Nevertheless, regarding access to care, particular attention has to be paid to so-called vulnerable groups, such as (frail) older adults. This paper aims to identify barriers frail community-dwelling older adults experience regarding access to formal care and support services. Both inductive and deductive content analysis were performed on 22 individual interviews with frail community-dwelling older adults who indicated they lacked care and support. Results indicate that (despite all policy measures) access to a broad spectrum of care and support services remains a challenge. The respondents’ barriers concern: 1) ‘affordability’ referring to the limited pensions of a lot of Belgian older adults and extensive care costs, 2) ‘accessibility’ going beyond geographical accessibility but also concerning waiting lists, 3) ‘availability’ referring to the lack of having someone around, 4) ‘adequacy’ addressing the insufficiency of motivated staff, 5) the absence of trust in care providers influencing ‘acceptability’ and 6) ‘awareness’ referring to limited health literacy. Finally, also examples of 7) ‘ageism’ within care settings were mentioned by the respondents. The discussion develops the argument that in order to make care and support more accessible for people to be able to age in place, governments should take measures to overcome these access limitations (e.g. by automatic entitlements or pro-active measures) and should take into account a broad description of access.