Choosing and Evaluating a High-Quality Retirement Home in Taiwan

The objective of this paper is to investigate the factors that influence retired people in choosing and evaluating a high-quality retirement home in Taiwan. The study is predicated on the observation that the changing nature of the family structure and the economic development in Taiwanese society have meant that the factors that influence the choice and evaluation of a retirement home are also changing. This exploratory study investigates these factors in terms of motivation for choice of retirement home and evaluation of outcomes. Based on a two-phase content analysis of data collected from 16 interviews with residents from two retirement homes, the study identifies four influential factors in each of these two aspects. With regard to motivation, the principal factors identified in the study are security, convenience, independence and necessity. The factors identified with regard to evaluation of outcomes are software and hardware equipment, service quality, living environment, and building design and layout. The identification of these factors has implications for both researchers and practitioners in this industry.