Do Young and Older Adults Have Different Health Care Priorities? Evidence From a National Survey of English Inpatients
Journal of Adolescent Health, 08/16/2012

Hargreaves DS et al. – These findings provide a quantitative national–level evidence base regarding young people's priorities in inpatient care.

• Standardized scores were calculated covering overall care and eight domains of patient experience (consistency, respect, involvement, nursing, doctors, cleanliness, pain control, and privacy).
• Values for young and older adults were compared.
• Additionally, Fisher r-to-z transformation was used to assess age differences in the strength of correlation between overall care and individual care domains.

• Young people reported a poorer experience across all aspects of inpatient care (p < .01).
• Compared with older adults, young men's overall care rating was more strongly correlated to pain control, and young women's to respect and doctors' characteristics (p < .05).