title: The mental health status and long term care needs of the Chinese elderly in Hong Kong.
abstract: This paper examines the mental health status of 945 Chinese older people who are in need of long term care services in Hong Kong. It was found that for those aged respondents who are already waiting for admission to infirmary, over 59.3% were already living in private aged homes, and only as few as 17.8% of these applicants were still living in their own homes. Besides, it was found that the mean SPMSQ score was lowest amongst those living in medical infirmary (1.52) and highest for those living in their own residences (5.99). Analysis of the relationship between GDS scores and residential types reveals that there were higher proportion of respondents residing in their own residences that fell into the highly depressed category. There is a need for the overall revamp of the planning, provision and financing for long term care and psychogeriatric services for Chinese older people in Hong Kong.
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000145:classification / Q000523:psychology; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D016330:Frail Elderly / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D005852:Geriatric Psychiatry; D006291:Health Policy; D006699:Home Care Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006707:Homes for the Aged / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006723:Hong Kong / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008134:Long-Term Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D020380:Needs Assessment; D011157:Population Dynamics; D012949:Social Work, Psychiatric; D014850:Waiting Lists