Association between socioeconomic status (SES), mental health and need for long-term care (NLTC)-A Longitudinal Study among the Japanese Elderly.
This study was carried out to explore the relationship between the SES, mental health and the NLTC of the Japanese elderly, with the aim of providing useful information to lower the NLTC. A longitudinal survey was carried out in Tama City, Tokyo in 2001 and 2004. Data were collected from the urban-dwelling older adults, aged 65 years old and above, through self-reported questionnaires, which was participated by 7905 respondents (47.6% male and 52.4% female). Chi-square test, Kendall tau-b correlation analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to identify the association between SES, mental health and NLTC. The results of the SEM analysis indicated that mental health would exert a negative effect on NLTC for both the elderly men and the elderly women, while the effect was stronger for the elderly women; SES was significantly and negatively associated to NLTC, both for the elderly men and elderly women; a significant and positive relationship was observed between SES and mental health for both genders, but slightly stronger for the elderly men. These findings have implications for targeting the interventions that are aimed to delaying the NLTC and the financing of LTC system.
Graduate School of Urban Environment Science, Tokyo Metropolitan University, 1-1 Minami-Osawa, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0397, Japan. Electronic address: kongfanlei@msn.com.
Fan-Lei
FL
Kong
Graduate School of Urban Environment Science, Tokyo Metropolitan University, 1-1 Minami-Osawa, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0397, Japan.
Tanji
T
Hoshi
School of Ethnology and Sociology, Minzu University of China, No. 27 Zhongguancun South Avenue, Haidian District, Beijing 100081, China.
Bin
B
Ai
Discipline of Medicine, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia.
Zu-Min
ZM
Shi
Graduate School of Urban Environment Science, Tokyo Metropolitan University, 1-1 Minami-Osawa, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0397, Japan.
Naoko
N
Nakayama
Graduate School of Urban Environment Science, Tokyo Metropolitan University, 1-1 Minami-Osawa, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0397, Japan.
Shuo
S
Wang
Graduate School of Urban Environment Science, Tokyo Metropolitan University, 1-1 Minami-Osawa, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0397, Japan.
Su-Wen
SW
Yang
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D008134:Long-Term Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D012923:Social Class; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014041:Tokyo; D014505:Urban Population
Mental health; Need for long-term care; Socioeconomic status; Structural equation modeling; The Japanese elderly