Changes in activities of daily living (ADL) among elderly Chinese by marital status, living arrangement, and availability of healthcare over a 3-year period

The purpose of this study was to assess how changes from different baselines of activities of daily living (ADL) can be explained by marital status, living arrangement and healthcare.

Using data from the Chinese Longitudinal Health Longevity Study conducted in 2002 and 2005, 8,099 surviving and 3,822 deceased elderly aged 65 years and over were evaluated using multinomial logistic regression.

After adjusting for demographic, socioeconomic and health factors, elderly who were either married or living alone were less likely to encounter ADL decline compared to their counterparts. This was true only for those with fully independent ADL at baseline. Notably, once the functional status of the elderly declined from baseline and they became dependent on others, the status of living alone was no longer a significant predictor of the rate of future decline. On the other hand, elderly who had a spouse, children or other relatives as caregivers were more likely to experience a faster recovery and lower likelihood of death, compared to those who were cared by unrelated live-in caregivers. In addition, Chinese elderly with health insurance had a lower likelihood of death than their counterparts lacking health insurance, among those with ADL at the dependent baseline.

Although there has been a change in family structure and living arrangements, the majority of Chinese elderly still rely on traditional forms of family support, especially after acquiring dependency status. As the elderly have different functional levels, healthcare policies in China should consider the need for both community and family support systems.