Differences of Subjective Well-Being in European Long-term Care Regimes

Introduction: With the increase of life expectancy, the issue of quality of life (QoL) for the elderly is getting more focus. Beside the individual view, social and economic aspects are becoming more pronounced.

Aims: In this study, we set out to establish a new classification of long-term care (LTC) regimes by examining the relationship between care systems and subjective quality of life.

Methods: Our work was based on data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe through a secondary analysis of CASP-12 results. It was assumed that higher quality of life values could be observed in countries providing a higher standard of social care. We studied the background variables in different LTC regimes.

Results: The data shows that the development and availability of care systems have a significant indirect correlation with older people’s subjective well-being. Our results raise the possibility of a new subdivision of care regimes.

Conclusions: Those countries featured earlier as family-based systems and Central-Eastern European countries were growing closer to each other in this classification. As our statistical method proved, family-based and Central-Eastern European regimes are not significantly different (Minimisers). Northern countries, where investment and quality of life are also high, remain highly positioned on the scale (Maximisers). Countries that have medium-level investments and subjective well-being parameters place in the middle of the scale (Optimisers). Global changes (climate, migration, political culture, technology) are expected to have an effect on social care regimes, especially on Minimisers, where the realization or failure of investments is a critical question.

SHARE, CASP-12, LTC, quality of life, social care

Márta FEKETE

Gálfi Béla Therapeutics and Rehabilitation Public Nonprofit Ltd. Pomáz, Hungary; 

MDRG Ltd., Budapest, Hungary

fekete.marta.se@gmail.com

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7276-0303

László PATYÁN: Department of Gerontology, Faculty of Health, University of Debrecen, Nyíregyháza, Hungary

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6815-0393

Lajos HÜSE: Department of Social Work, Faculty of Health, University of Debrecen, Nyíregyháza, Hungary

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9137-3771

Éva HUSZTI: Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Institute of Political Science and Sociology, Faculty of Humanities, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5290-4066

Péter TAKÁCS: Department of Health Informatics, Faculty of Health, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0620-7753