ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1544575
This article is part of the Research TopicChallenges and Innovations in Healthcare Management and Long-Term Care for an Aging SocietyView all 8 articles
The impact of community elderly care services on the quality of life of the elderly in China: the mediating role of social adaptation
Provisionally accepted
Yuanfeng LIU
Yang Shilin*- Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, China
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Background: With the deepening trend of aging in China, community elderly care services occupy an important position in China's elderly care system. This paper aims to explore the impact of different types of community elderly care services on the quality of life of older adults and to analyze its underlying influencing mechanism.The research data are obtained from the 2020 China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey data. The Structural Equation Model is used to examine the relationship between of three types of community elderly care services on older adults'quality of life.(1) Three types of community elderly care services are positively associated with quality of life of older adults. Compared to basic elderly care services, extended elderly care services have a more significant impact on older people's quality of life. (2) It is found that the impacts of three types of community elderly care services on the quality of life of elderly people are heterogeneous in terms of age, registered residence, and disablement status. (3) Social adaptation mediated the relationship between three types of community elderly care services and older adults' quality of life.The results of this study show that three types of community elderly care services could improve the quality of life of older adults, and social adaptation plays a mediating role between three types of community elderly care services and quality of life. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the supply of community elderly care services, especially extended elderly care services. By accurately identifying the needs of the elderly and optimizing service supply, giving the elderly more useful services, improving their attitudes towards society and helping them better adapt to society, thereby improving the quality of life of older adults . This study provides a basis for optimizing community elderly care services and improving the quality of life of the elderly, and emphasizes the key role of social adaptation, which has important practical guiding significance for promoting the sustainable development of the elderly care service system.
Keywords: community elderly care services, social adaptation, quality of life of older adults, Chinese older adult, Mediating effect
Received: 13 Dec 2024; Accepted: 11 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 LIU and Shilin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yang Shilin, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, China
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