Characteristics of Patients Who Receive Home Health Services and Expectations of Caregivers

Objective: It is expected that Home Health Services (HHS) reduce unnecessary health spending as well as decrease burden on hospitals, and provide high capacity to use available resources more efficiently. Thus we sought to assess these services including patients' characteristics and caregiver's expectation and satisfaction from HHS. Methods: Fifty-seven patient and their caregivers were included in the study. Patients' daily life activities were evaluated with Katz scale and socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of patients were also recorded. Further caregiver's expectations and satisfaction from HHS was evaluated with the help of a standard form. Analysis was done with the SPSS software. Results: The mean age was 68.7 +/- 19.2 years. Out of total, 61.4% of patients (n=35) were female. Diagnoses according to the frequency were as follows: hemophilia (n=15; 26.3%), Alzheimer (n=12; 21.1%), terminal cancer (n=10; 17.5%), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (n=6; 10.5%), Parkinson (n=4; 7%), the patients received postoperative care (n=4; 7%). Out of those who receive HHS, 42.1% patients had pressure ulcer during the evaluation. As the duration of being bedridden increases so chances of presence of pressure ulcer was significantly increased (p<0.05). Total 59.6% caregivers were waiting to examine patients in their home. The opinion survey shows that 89.5% of caregivers thought there would be a reduction in the frequency of hospitalization if patients utilize HHS appropriately, and 82.5% of caregivers believed that already benefited enough from the HHS. Conclusion: HHS was given with professional team will meet expectations of patients and their relatives as well as decrease frequency of hospitalization and will prevent unnecessary applications to the outpatient clinics. In order to enable more people in need to benefit from this service, family physicians should identify their patients requiring HHS and give them appropriate guidance.