Evaluación de los Resultados y de la Satisfacción de un Programa de Atención Domiciliaria de Pacientes Ancianos Dependientes

objectives: to assess the impact of enrolling in a home care program for chronically dependent elderly people and satisfaction with care. design: non-randomized, before-and-after study. setting: primary care. urban. participants: chronically dependent elderly people enrolling in a home care program (n=156, with a 7.8% drop-out rate during the one-year trial). measures: chronically dependent elderly patients enrolling in a home care program with assessment at time of entry and one year later. variables were: perceived health (likert scale), quality of life (nottingham questionnaire), visits received (visitors and number of visits/year) and satisfaction with care received (likert scale and positive and negative aspects of the program). results: no significant change in perceived health or overall quality of life; however, there was improvement (p<0.05) specifically in emotional quality of life and in social relationships. number of visits decreased (14.2 vs 9.0; p<0.01), as well as percentage of frequent visitors (34.0% vs 17.1%; p<0.01). 85.4% of patients felt that care improved towards end of study, with significant improvement in satisfaction with overall care received (p<0.05), and with medical (p<0.05) and nursing care (p<0.01): (7.8 vs 8.5, 8.0 vs 8.7 and 7.3 vs 8.4, respectively). conclusions: enrolling in a home care program for dependent elderly people has a positive effect on patients by improving perception of care received, reducing use of health care services and improving certain aspects of quality of life.