Private employment of home care workers and use of health services by disabled older people in Italy

• Home care workers privately employed by households have become today the “third rail” of longtermcare policies in several industrialised countries. In Italy, estimates suggested that they might be asmany as over 840,000, most of them being foreign-born migrants living with the cared for person. So far, littleattention has been paid to the integration and coordination of these workers within the formal care sector.We analysed a cross-sectional sample of 4,814 disabled older Italians living in the community to assess theassociation between the private employment of home care workers and the likelihood of using other formalservices. After controlling for possible confounding effects of predisposing characteristics and need factors,we found that using private assistance at home is strongly associated with the use of all services. Thesecorrelations suggests that a “crowding-in” effect exists between the use of private care and public formalservices, and a clear pattern of care tasks allocation can be identified in Italy, where family and privatecarers are responsible for assisting the older person with basic tasks of daily living, while the residualcompetences of public formal sector relate to specialised health care services.

Ämnesord

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Annan medicin och hälsovetenskap -- Gerontologi, medicinsk/hälsovetenskaplig inriktning (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Other Medical and Health Sciences -- Gerontology, specialising in Medical and Health Sciences (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Hälsovetenskap

Health and Caring Sciences

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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