To study the complex phenomenon of home care utilization, most researchers have conducted epidemiologic tests of the Andersen model. Understanding any complex phenomenon requires attention to these problems: (1) identifying the phenomenon's parts, (2) determining relationships among the parts, and (3) identifying changes in the phenomenon. Focused on population risk factors rather than individual behaviors, epidemiologic tests of the Andersen model have not yielded an empirically valid construct of home care need (a critical “part” of the phenomenon). Tests of relationships among such constructs have not produced conclusive predictions of use. Analyzing changes in use has been thwarted in part because prospective longitudinal designs have seldom been employed. Employing these basic arguments, this critique of the epidemiologic study of home care utilization is presented as a rationale for descriptive phenomenological study of the experience of home care. A phenomenological perspective on the three problems of complexity is discussed, as it is being implemented in a study of older windows' experience of home care.