Table 3.

Lower care level and higher care level by characteristics of study participants

	Lower Care-needs level Group1(n = 1,067)		Higher Care-needs level Group2(n = 209)		χ2	p-value
	n	%	n	%
Sex
Female	830	88.7	106	11.3	65.5268	< .0001**
Male	237	69.7	103	30.3
Age
< 75	143	69.8	62	30.2	34.2783	< .0001**
75≦	924	86.3	147	13.7
Income Level
Lower income level3	1020	84.3	190	15.7	3.1929	0.0740
Higher income level4	39	75.0	13	25.0
Conditions that caused a need for LTC
Respiratory or heart disease	60	83.3	12	16.7	0.0038	0.9505
Others	1000	83.6	196	16.4
Regular hospital visits before entry into the LTCI
Yes	429	77.6	124	22.4	26.0288	< .0001**
No	638	88.2	85	11.8
Period of needing care
< 2 years	481	88.1	65	11.9	14.0790	0.0002**
2 years≦	571	80.2	141	19.8
Caregiver’s sex
Female	420	71.6	167	28.4	15.7563	< .0001**
Male	192	85.0	34	15.0
Caregiver/applicant dyad
Wife/Husband (living with)	205	67.4	99	32.6	74.8750	< .0001**
Others	829	88.7	106	11.3
Clients living with family or not
Living alone	517	95.9	22	4.1	105.0940	< .0001**
Living with family	537	74.3	186	25.7
Corporation type of care management agency
Medical	282	79.0	75	21.0	7.7551	0.0054**
Non-medical	785	85.4	134	14.6
VNS use
Yes	60	56.6	46	43.4	61.6074	< .0001**
No	1007	86.1	163	13.9
Home-Help Service use
Yes	344	82.5	73	17.5	0.5741	0.4486
No	723	84.2	136	15.8

* p < 0.05 ** p < 0.01 Using the chi-squared test.

1 Lower care-needs level group: Support-required/care levels 1–2.

2 Higher care-needs level group: Care levels 3–5.

3 Lower income level: not paying personal income tax.

4 Higher income level: paying personal income tax.