Aging & Society: Eighth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

As society ages, there are increasing numbers of senior citizens. Thailand is affected by this situation as the elderly need more support from surrounding communities. This involves many stakeholders with different cultures and norms.This study develops the concept of collaborative transcultural care for the elderly in community settings. Mutual-Collaborative Action Research integrated with cross-cultural care was used to guide this study. Content analysis was employed to analyze the qualitative data. Results demonstrate many factors affected palliative care for the aging in community settings including health conditions, caregiver’s behaviors and concerns, healthcare provider supports, and health system as well as local organization supports. In terms of culture, cross-cultural care has significant influence on developing effective systems. Multidisciplinary teams were key to successful care for the aging in community of multidimensional context. Moreover, not only the aging needed this sort of effective care, their family caregivers did also. Based on the different religions found in community settings, transcultural care required more support from key stakeholders. As such, this study suggests transcultural care in community should be developed in collaboration with all stakeholders at every level of health system. For further study, possibilities include considerations based on additional multicultural norms.