An Integrated Care Model for Older People

Abstract

The cultural of Ban Mai Daeng community is kinship relationships that support generously contributing to the care of the elderly. The social capital of various groups, both formal and informal, which gathering to older people care. This qualitative research, conducted in Ban Mai Daeng subdistrict, aimed to study social capital and the community’s capacity in caring for its elderly, in order to develop an integrated model of caring for the elderly. Participants were 11 primary caregivers, 11 older persons, 3 health personnel, 14 village health volunteers, 6 elderly club members, 8 community leaders, and 2 municipal district personnel. Snow-ball sampling was applied. Data were collected by using in-depth interviewing. The data were analyzed by using content analysis. Results found the following: 1) family social capital includes both the primary caregivers and the secondary caregivers to care of the elderly, in accordance with the family context, 2) health volunteers can assess vital signs, do screening for diseases and ADL, home visiting, care of daily activities and finding the data for support career development in the elderly, 3) the elderly club encourages the elderly to participate into activities such as exercise, stress relief, and knowledge sharing to take care of the elderly who need depending,  4) Tha Ruea Subdistrict Local Administration Organization participates to the budget and supports personnel in health operations for the elderly, 5)community leaders organize the elderly health promotion activities by providing the elderly  information and studying the feasibility of various care programs for the elderly, while 6) the Health  Promoting Hospital initiates the establishment of an elderly club, trains the Health Volunteers on health care for the elderly at home, provides initial treatment, rehabilitation, as well as coordinates the  budget with the sub-district administrative organization, and implement the government's elderly health promotion policy. Finally, the integrated elderly care model was named FC4PAr Model, for “Family-Community capacity-F.”

The FC4PAr Model leads to a positive impact on learning, development and care for the elderly in the community in both problem solving and self-reliance. Hence, public health personnel should adopt this model to health developing in all age groups population.