Purpose: The purpose of the study was to describe the contents of self-care issues of older men living alone at home in an urban high-rise apartment district and a suburban farming district, with the additional aim of providing the information regarding community-based care programs to meet their needs.
Design & methods: The study design was a qualitative descriptive approach with semi-structured interviews conducted in an urban high-rise apartment district and a suburban farming district. From each, primary informants were ten elderly men living alone and key informants were seven health or welfare professionals or local government volunteers, who were basically familiar with the elderly community-care. Qualitative analysis was implemented from perspectives including their weaknesses, strengths, and ways of dealing with self-care.
Results: From a total of 117 codes for primary informants data and 54 codes for key informants data regarding self-care needs of the male elderly living alone, 18 categories were extracted comparing the differences between the two types of community district. Four themes were then abstracted: "autonomy" as strength; "anxiety regarding health issues" and "maintaining their daily life" as weaknesses; and "utilizing health or welfare resources" as their ways of dealing with self-care. "Autonomy" included categories of "maintaining their own life style", "not expecting others' help", "living alone as positively as possible" and "being easygoing as their own masters". "Anxiety regarding health issues" included "anxiety of illness or dying alone", "being ill" and "worrying about safety". "Maintaining their daily life" included "feeding problems" and "unbalanced nutrition" and the category of "not recognizing undesirable daily habits" was extracted from key informants, while that of "convenience of being alone" was extracted from primary informants. The theme "utilizing social health or welfare resources" included categories of "expressing their daily troubles" and "utilizing social health or welfare resources independently" in the urban high-rise apartment district, and "not expressing their daily troubles" and "utilizing health or welfare resources dependently" in the suburban farming district.
Conclusions: The results suggest that self-care issues of older men living alone in an urban area are insufficient nutrition or feeding status, anxiety of illness or dying alone, and not recognizing undesirable daily habits, even while considering their lives independent or convenient. Differences of utilizing health or welfare resources between the two communities could be considered in providing community-based care programs to elderly men living alone.