A Health Need Satisfaction Instrument for Taiwan's single-living older people with chronic disease in the community

AIMS: The aims of this study were to explore health needs and need satisfaction of Taiwan's single-living older people with chronic disease in the community, develop a culturally sensitive Health Need Satisfaction Instrument and examine the relationships between health needs and need satisfaction.

BACKGROUND: Until now, there has been no reliable instrument for health professionals to assess, comprehensively, health needs and needs satisfaction for Chinese single-living older people with chronic disease in the community.

DESIGN: Between-method triangulation design was used. The first phase explored the contextual content of health needs from the perspectives of a purposive sampling (n = 44) using the explorative qualitative method. The second phase developed the Health Need Satisfaction Instrument and established its reliability and validity. The final phase implemented the instrument in a cohort study (n = 110) and examined the relationship between the respective/overall health needs and need satisfaction.

RESULTS: A Health Need Satisfaction Instrument with good validity and reliability encompassing tangible, psychospiritual and informational needs was developed. A significant correlation between tangible and psychospiritual needs (r = 0.238, p < 0.05) and between tangible and informational needs (r = 0.306, p < 0.01) was found. Three types of need satisfaction were inter-related (p < 0.01). A negative correlation between global health needs and need satisfaction (r = -0.223, p < 0.05) was found. Each domain of need satisfaction was negatively correlated with that particular type of health needs (p < 0.01), except for psychospiritual need (r = 0.339, p < 0.01). A measurement model between health needs and need satisfaction was established.

CONCLUSION: This study set a successful example of a rigorous, cross-cultural instrument development process for community-based Taiwan's single-living older people.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Using Health Need Satisfaction Instrument, the less satisfied multidimensional health needs of community-based Taiwan's single-living older people with chronic disease can be more accurately assessed and met.