The purpose of this study was to examine the awareness and needs of older Korean residents in Japan for long-term care insurance services by analyzing the factors associated with their interest in using the services.
All participants were Koreans aged 65 years or older living in Tokyo's Ward A, and all were interviewed in their homes. The investigation items were the presence or absence of intention of using long-term care insurance services as well as the following: 1. predisposing factors (basic attributes, communication abilities in Japanese, inclination toward family care); 2. Enabling factors (degree of familiarity with the services, economic situation, receipt or non-receipt of public pensions, record on use of the services); and 3. Need factors (subjective sense of well-being, ADL, IADL). The χ² test was used to examine the correlations between the presence or absence of intention of using the services.
Seventy-eight Koreans were studied. Among those, 35.9% were second-generation Koreans living in Japan. Those with strong inclination toward family care and without pensions accounted for 26.3%. The percentage that intended to use long-term care insurance services was 69.2%, which showed significant correlations with inclination toward family care and economic situation. Many of the Koreans had a positive view of the socialization of care and wanted family-centered home care with outside services. The study found significant correlations between the receipt or non-receipt of pensions, economic situation and age, suggesting that care premiums and fees are a greater financial burden for older Koreans without pensions when compared with the burden for older Japanese. For Koreans, the financial burden may possibly prevent obtaining services. The study showed that developing a support system to allow easy access to long-term care insurance services and providing help compatible with individual care needs are necessities.

Objectives  This study investigated the use of In-home services of the Public Long-Term Care (LTC) Insurance System by foreign residents in Osaka city to serve this population better.Methods  Using information from the WAMNET database, questionnaires were sent to 1,800 care managers (CMs) affiliated with 1,106 In-home Care Support Office and Community General Support Centers in Osaka city (1-4 CMs/site), and collected between February and early March 2011. The data collected were analyzed quantitatively, focusing on descriptive statistics. And fisher’s exact tests were used to evaluate the relationship between the Japanese communication skills and age, sex, and family structure.Results  We obtained answers from 460 CMs (collection rate 25.6%). The total number of foreign residents covered under the service by CMs was 590, and we analyzed the valid data of 312 foreign user’s information.   Home-Visit LTC and Day Care for LTC were most frequently used. 34.3% of CMs had difficulty communicating in Japanese, there was a higher proportion of people who had difficulty in communication with older age group (p<0.05), and noticed that nearly 60% faced economic hardship. Conclusion  Our results suggest that careful communication is required with older age groups. This indicates that there may be difficulties in communication and understanding the clients’ needs, which are necessary to create care plan and to ensure optimal utilization of the services. And it is possible to reduce the service required user charge due to the insufficient economic status. The support system should be strengthened to address communication and economic difficulties faced by foreign users of In-home services, from the standpoint of the service fairness.