Objective  To analyze effects of health condition on home-based pension service demand among community elder residents and to provide evidences for promoting the construction of home-based pension service system.

  Methods  We conducted a face-to-face survey among 2 300 residents aged ≥ 60 years selected using stratified random sampling in communities of 6 districts across Xuzhou city, Jiangsu province in July 2017. A general questionnaire and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) were adopted in the survey and Poisson regression model was used to analyze the effects of health condition on the elderly's demand for home-based pension service.

  Results  For the 2 134 participants with valid information, medical care was the most required among the four home-based service domains, with a mean score of 1.954 in the scale of 0 – 6. The results of Poisson regression analysis showed that the IADL score had significant influences on needs of life care, medical care and cultural entertainment (all P < 0.001); self-rated health condition had a significant influence on the needs of daily life care and cultural entertainment (P < 0.1 and P < 0.001); but whether suffering from chronic disease had no significant influence on the four domains of home-based care need (P > 0.1). The results also revealed that age, education, economic status, and the number of children were significant influencing factors for home-based care need.

  Conclusion  Health status has a significant impact on needs of home-based care service among community elderly and the providers should improve their services based on the requirements of the elderly and pay special attention to self-rated health condition of the elderly.