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Abstract #156745

Holly C. Felix, PhD and Ruth L. Eudy, MSW, PhD. College of Public Health, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, 4301 West Markham Street, Slot 820, Little Rock, AR 72205, 501-526-6656, eudyruth@uams.edu

Knowledge of services is an important determinant of health-related service use, including long-term care (LTC) services. Policy makers and program administrators should have a clear understanding of the information sources people use to learn about the full range of LTC services. However, few studies have documented the sources of information used to make decisions about LTC. We analyzed data related to information sources collected by a random digit dial telephone survey (n=621) in Arkansas. We found respondents relied on multiple formal and informal sources to learn about services to help them or a family member remain in their home. We found that respondents turned most to family friends, physicians, the state department human services, clergy, hospital discharge planners, and Area Agencies on Aging for information. We also looked at differences of preferred sources of information by two age groups (<65 years, 65+ years), by racial groups (white, non-white), and gender (male, female). We found four significant differences by age group in information source selection; one significant difference by racial group, and two significant differences by gender group We recommend that policy makers and long-term care program administrators target the primary sources of information identified overall, and by age, racial, and gender groups to improve awareness of home and community-based service options. These findings and recommendations, along with background and study methods will be discussed in the presentation.

Learning Objectives: Learning Objectives

• To understand the function of knowledge of services to service utilization (based on the Andersen model of health services use).
• To describe primary sources of information used by various groups to learn about home and community-based long-term care services
• To list policy and programmatic recommendations for improving the availability of information about home and community-based long-term care services.

Keywords: Long-Term Care,

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No
Any institutionally-contracted trials related to this submission?

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.