Activities of daily living and its influencing factors among the elderly in pension institutions providing integrated medical and nursing care

  Objective  To examine the status and influencing factors of activities of daily living (ADL) among the elderly and to provide references for promoting legitimate rights and interests of the elderly.

  Methods  Using multistage stratified sampling, we conducted a questionnaire survey and focus interview among 850 persons aged 60 years and above and living in 19 pension institutions providing integrated medical and nursing care in 7 districts of Qingdao city, Shandong province between June 2017 and March 2018. We adopted chi-square test and multiple linear regression to analyze influencing factors of ADL.

  Results  The mean overall ADL score was 30.19 ± 15.289 for the 800 participants with valid information; the proportion of the participants with impaired, declined, and normal ADL were 59.13%, 17.00%, and 23.88%, respectively. Multivariate analyses revealed that significant factors affecting the elderly' ADL were health status (t = 8.852), education level (t = – 3.582), type of household registration (t = – 2.976), service model of integrated medical and nursing care provided by an institution (t = 2.505), and type of medical insurance (t = – 1.752) (all P < 0.05).

  Conclusion  Impaired or declined ADL is prevalent among the elderly in pension institutions providing integrated medical and nursing care and the ADL of the elderly is associated with physical and social factors and with service model of integrated medical and nursing care provided by the institutions.