The Gerontologist, Vol 37, Issue 4 533-542, Copyright © 1997 by The Gerontological Society of America
The influence of community context on the preferences of older adults for entering a nursing home
CW Peek, RT Coward, GR Lee and BA Zsembik
Department of Health Policy and Epidemiology, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, USA.
Previous research has established that rural elders are more likely to
enter a nursing home than elders living in suburban and urban areas. This
research examined preferences for long-term care alternatives using a
telephone survey of community-dwelling elders (age 65+). In contrast to
admission patterns, urban elders were more likely to prefer nursing home
care if unable to live independently. This difference persisted in
multinomial logit models that included other predictors of nursing home
use. Thus, rural elders may be more likely to experience discrepancies
between their preferred mode of long-term care and the actual outcomes that
they may ultimately experience.
