Intention to use physical and psychological community care services: A comparison between young-old and older consumers in Korea

The purpose of this study is to examine older peoples' intention to use community care services, based on official data from Statistics Korea. This study attempted to compare the intention to use community care services by young-old consumers (60-64 years) and older consumers (65 years and over) according to three factors of a behavioral model for health services: predisposing, enabling and need. The older consumer group had more need for overall community care services and experienced more health problems. A reverse pattern appeared in the mean difference of intention score for physical and psychological services. The groups that have a greater need for physical services are regarded as vulnerable groups: they are older with a lower education level, lower income, lower social status and more health problems. They have no other choice for meeting their physical health needs than to depend on the social care system. The vulnerable groups may also have mental health problems, but it seems that they do not have enough resources and cannot afford the care. The intention to use physical community care services was much higher for older consumers who have physical health problems. Conversely, the intention to use psychological community care services was much lower for the older consumer group if they have physical problems.