Does Maintaining High Accessibility to Medical Care Services Increase Psychological Well-Being of Chinese Older Adults?

Abstract

Objective. The health benefits of medical care services for older adults have been well known. This study aims to identify trajectories of medical care accessibility and their impacts on Chinese older adults’ psychological well-being to enrich findings on health outcomes of medical care accessibility. Methods. This study included 2660 participants aged 65 years and older from the 2005–2018 Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey, and this paper used the latent class growth model to analyze the heterogeneous trajectories of medical care accessibility among Chinese older adults. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was also used to explore whether the trajectories of medical care accessibility impact the psychological well-being of Chinese older adults and its heterogeneity among different subgroups of older adults. Results. Three distinct trajectories of medical care accessibility “maintaining high accessibility” (n = 2230, 84.1%), “medium to high accessibility” (n = 222, 8.10%), and “high to low accessibility” (n = 208, 7.80%) were identified, respectively. Regression results show that older adults maintaining high accessibility to medical care reported well psychological well-being. This result was particularly evident among older adults in urban and eastern areas. Discussion. Our findings highlight the importance of maintaining high accessibility to medical care and reducing inequalities in the accessibility to medical care for increasing psychological well-being of Chinese older adults.