Consumer satisfaction among elderly in a municipal day care center

Authors:	Björkman B, Ludvigsson L, Occupational Therapy Programme, Linköping University.
Tutor:	Kjellberg A, teacher, Occupational Therapy, Dept of Neuroscience and Locomotion, Linköping University.

Background
Since the "Elderly reform" was carried out in 1992 the municipalities, among other things, have a greater responsibility for the care of elderly in the society. The authors interest in the elderly, their life situation and what kinds of activities the municipalities can offer to the elderly, led to a request from the municipality of Linköping to participate in the ongoing quality assurance work.

Aim of the study
The aim of the study was to measure consumer satisfaction among elderly in a municipal day care center, as part of the quality assurance work in the municipality of Linköping.

Material and methods
First an interview form to measure consumer satisfaction was developed from background studies and observations in place. The form came to contain some structured questions and a large number of open questions. All elderly retired people who fulfilled certain established criteria and who visited the day care center during a period of two weeks, totally 38 persons, were interviewed. Obtained data were treated partly qualitatively, partly quantitatively.

Results
The result shows that the day care center is a needed and essential place for the elderly. The result in the study points out a need among the elderly that day care centers in different shapes might be established.

The majority of the visitors state that they have gained new social acquaintances by visiting the day care center. The visitors were all satisfied with the staff. Yet most of the interviewed visitors felt that the staff had difficulties in being sufficient because a group of elderly among the visitors had become disordered and more demanding. This group of elderly was not able to answer the questions in our study, mainly because of dementia. The study indicates a need for municipal activity forms with larger possibilities to take different conditions and individual needs of the elderly into consideration in the daily care activities.

Conclusions
The result shows a great deal of consumer satisfaction among the elderly with the day care center. The principal reason for the elderly to visit the day care center was to meet other people and have somebody to talk with. In several ways the result in this study shows that the day care center plays a very important role for the visitors social life.

Key words: Activities of Daily Living (ADL), aged, gerontology, quality of life, retirement.