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Determinants of home-based formal help in community-dwelling older people in Finland

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Abstract

Knowledge of the determinants of use of formal home-based services among older people is of particular importance for predicting the need for and cost of care in the future. The aim of this study was to estimate the frequency of formal and informal help among community-dwelling older people and to assess the determinants of home-based formal help, with a special emphasis on the frequency of help from spouse, from children and other relatives and friends. We used nationally representative cross-sectional data from 1,166 community-dwelling Finnish persons aged 70–99. Determinants of formal help were assessed with logistic regression models. Receiving formal help was most strongly related to need factors such as age and functional capacity. Adjusted for need factors, receiving help from spouse or living with someone else than the spouse decreased the odds of receiving formal help. In contrast, the more frequently the children helped, the larger were the odds of receiving formal home-based help. Help from other informal sources did not affect receipt of formal help. Our results thus suggest that intra-household help from spouse or from other co-residents may partly offset expected cost increases in the formal care sector brought about by an aging population. The results further suggest that help from children and help from formal sources is likely to be concomitant and that children may act as agents seeking formal help also in a welfare state based on the universal and equal care services.

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Notes

  1. According to the definition of Statistics Finland, urban municipalities are those where at least 90% of the population live in densely populated communities (groups of buildings with at least 200 inhabitants, where the distance of the buildings is normally not more than 200 m), or the population of the largest community is at least 15,000. Densely populated municipalities are those where 60–90% of the population live in densely populated communities and the population of the largest community is at least 4,000 but at most 15,000. The rest are rural municipalities (http://www.stat.fi).

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Acknowledgments

This study has been supported by the Academy of Finland (project numbers 203418 and 210752). The work is part of EU-funded research collaboration ‘Major Ageing and Gender Issues in Europe (MAGGIE)’. The authors thank the anonymous referees for their helpful comments. Correspondence to Jenni Blomgren, National Public Health Institute, Department of Health and Functional Capacity, Mannerheimintie 166, 00300 Helsinki, Finland. E-mail: jenni.blomgren@ktl.fi.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health and Functional Capacity, National Public Health Institute, Mannerheimintie 166, 00300, Helsinki, Finland

    Jenni Blomgren, Tuija Martelin & Seppo Koskinen

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 18, 00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Pekka Martikainen

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  1. Jenni Blomgren
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  2. Pekka Martikainen
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  4. Seppo Koskinen
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Correspondence to Jenni Blomgren.

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Blomgren, J., Martikainen, P., Martelin, T. et al. Determinants of home-based formal help in community-dwelling older people in Finland. Eur J Ageing 5, 335–347 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-008-0094-4

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