Korean J Community Nutr.  2014 Oct;19(5):459-467. 10.5720/kjcn.2014.19.5.459.

A Qualitative Study on Attitude, Acceptability, and Adaptation for Home-delivered Meal Services in the Korean Elderly from the Perspective of Life Context

• Hwang JY
• Kim B
• Kim K

• KMID: 2268109
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.5720/kjcn.2014.19.5.459

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this study was to suggest the strategies for improvement of home-delivered meal services for the elderly, to identify reasons for recipients to get started with the services and to evaluate the attitude, acceptability and adaptation of recipients to the services from the perspective of life context.
METHODS
The data was collected through face-to-face in-depth interviews with eighteen low-income elderly recipients of home-delivered meals and analyzed using a qualitative research method.
RESULTS
The results were deduced as four themes which comprised of long-term vulnerable socioeconomic contexts resulted in entry to the services, conflicting acceptability to the services, passive adaptation to taking the services, and positive practices to cope with supplement free meals or other services. The service participation was initiated because of a combination of prolonged, vulnerable socioeconomic contexts, including poverty and unexpected life events such as diseases, disability, living alone, aging and unemployment. With regard to taking the services, conflicting acceptability was observed: positive aspects including saving living cost and good quality of meals, and negative aspects including lack of a tailored service and feeling of stigma. Although the recipients needed an individualized service, they did not express their needs and demands for the services and they accepted the unavailability as an accustomed, prolonged vulnerable socioeconomic context. With regard to lack of tailored services, either self-solution such as modification of eating patterns or community-based network and services were used.
CONCLUSIONS
We suggest that a system to concretely identify recipients' attitude, acceptability and adaptation for home-delivered meal services should be developed in the establishment of a tailored nutrition support system for the low-income elderly.

Keyword

the low-income elderly; qualitative method; home-delivered meal services; service acceptability

MeSH Terms

Aged*
Aging
Eating
Humans
Meals*
Poverty
Qualitative Research
Unemployment

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