Research on Urban Community Elderly Care Facility Based on Quality of Life by SEM: Cases Study of Three Types of Communities in Shenzhen, China

Abstract

Aging in place has been proposed in response to increasing aging worldwide. Recently, many community elderly care facilities (CECFs) in China have been built to meet the desire of the elderly to age in place and help them live better in familiar environments. This study instituted a correlation evaluation system between the elderly’s quality of life (QOL) and their satisfaction with CECFs. It assessed the QOL of the elderly in urban communities in Shenzhen and identified the issues of CECFs that led to the elderly’s low QOL. Firstly, a hypothesis of the relationship between QOL and CECF satisfaction was proposed on the basis of previous studies. The QOL–CECF model was verified and tested by structural equation modeling (SEM). It was found that the functional setting, planning layout, and operational management affect the QOL of the elderly. Secondly, this study investigated the issue of CECFs in three types of communities, namely, urbanized village communities, affordable housing communities, and commercial housing communities. A factor-based analysis revealed the intrinsic linkages between and extracted the composite factors of CECF indicators in the three types of communities, revealing the CECF issues that led to low QOL using a QOL–CECF satisfaction analysis. Lastly, this study proposed differentiated strategies for CECFs in urbanized village communities and affordable and commercial housing communities. This study can provide differentiated strategies for CECFs in various types of communities to effectively improve the QOL of the elderly and promote the sustainability of CECFs.