Awareness of the new long-term care insurance system and social services for elderly care in non-medical junior college students.
The present study was conducted in order to investigate the awareness of the new long-term care insurance and social services for the elderly care among young people. Non-medical junior college students answered a self-administered questionnaire about the new long-term insurance and other related matters. The present study revealed that only a small percentage of students knew about "the new public long-term care insurance system" (13% for males and 11% for females), "care-manager" (11% and 8%), or "care-plan" (9% and 5%) in 1999, just one year before this insurance system took effect. In contrast, more than one third of the students knew about "home-help service" (41% and 47%), "long-term care institution for the elderly" (33% and 35%), and "elderly care nursing home" (33% and 36%). However, these rates were much lower than the rates among nursing students in 1998. An educational program for non-medical students should be recommended to help them to understand our rapidly aging society and to take an interest in public policies and social services for the elderly in Japan.
Miyake
Y
Y
Department of Public Health, Kinki University School of Medicine, Osaka-Sayama 589-8511, Japan.
Washio
M
M
Matsuu
K
K
D000293:Adolescent; D000368:Aged; D001364:Awareness; D005260:Female; D006299:Health Services for the Aged; D006801:Humans; D007353:Insurance, Long-Term Care; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D010346:Patient Care Management; D013334:Students