Conditions and characteristics of older adults and primary caregivers who use short-stay services: a comparison between long-term and short-term service groups by service type

Objective: This study was conducted to examine the conditions and characteristics of older adults who use short-stay services as well as those of their primary caregivers by categorizing them into long-term use and short-term use groups. Patients and Methods: We conducted logistic regression analyses on the data of 679 short-term residential care (short-stay) users using the χ(2) test, with the type of use as the dependent variable. Results: The results of the comparison show that users in long-term care were likely to be men, ≥95 years old, live alone, and require care for severe dementia (level three or more). Primary caregivers lived farther away from the user’s neighborhood, felt burdened by and lacked knowledge about providing care, and preferred that the patient continue to receive care in a facility or be hospitalized. Conclusion: It was suggested that care support specialists in charge of elderly persons requiring severe nursing care who live alone may be adjusting to the long-term use of short stays, which is not usually expected, because they are influenced by the nursing care burden of the primary caregiver who lives far away, the level of knowledge and skills of nursing care, and the primary caregiver’s willingness to continue caring, and because they cannot immediately enter a facility when they are no longer able to live alone.