This article examines the trade-off between owned housing and old-age care in Slovenia where the population has been found outstandingly willing to enter residential care and also consume housing wealth for this purpose. To explain this peculiarity, a case study as a holistic in-depth analysis was conducted, combining multiple sources of quantitative survey data and qualitative interview-based insights and accounting for the institutional context and individual decisions. What was found was a modernised version of the traditional 'inheritance for care' exchange, whereby the inheritor partly finances the parent's residential care. This family-mediated trade-off between old-age care and housing wealth was found to serve as an informal equity-release scheme which in Slovenia helps bridge the post-transitional old-age gap, the syndrome of low pensions, underdeveloped care services and owner-occupied housing un-adapted to seniors. Moreover, it is hypothesised that this structural gap is common to other post-transitional countries. The article contributes to the cross-sectional understanding of quality of life; namely, it focuses on the relation between housing equity, old-age care and the family. It corroborates that in older Slovenian population this relations specifically frequently takes the form of the family mediated trade-off between housing equity and old-age care, thus responding to the structural old-age care gap. In addition, the article sets up the specific cross-national comparative frame of Slovenia - the group of post-transitional countries - EU27.
COBISS.SI-ID: 33991517
The purpose of this paper is to report on current developments in user involvement in healthcare in Slovenia and to explore the issue from the macro-, mezzo- and micro-levels. User involvement is first contextualised within history of the organisation of healthcare system, from its socialist past through to its posttransitional developments. Second, user involvement is tracked through an analysis of healthcare policies and legislation as well as at its institutional and organisational levels. Finally, user involvement practices are illustrated from the perspective of individual patients. A descriptive and exploratory case study design was employed, including a literature review, document analysis and qualitative thematic analysis of nine indepth and four semi-structured interviews. The findings reveal a complex and at times ambivalent picture in which user involvement is still not firmly embedded into the healthcare system, despite being generally accepted. No systematic qualitative research of patient involvement in Slovenia has previously been published. This research will establish a basis for further investigations of the topic.
COBISS.SI-ID: 4895083
The primary interest of this article is to understand the organisation of community care in Slovenia. There are several differences at the local level regarding how the formal care of the older people is organised (e.g. the existence of social home care services) and to what extent other services have developed (e.g. institutional care for the older people, intergenerational centres, community nursing, NGOs and interpersonal assistance). We focus on two services, institutional care and social home care, and present the typology of community care in Slovenia. Four clusters were obtained via a hierarchical method (k-means clustering). Clusters of municipalities are comprised of municipalities that have similar characteristics of care for older people, taking into account both institutional care and social home care. The results have shown that municipalities in Slovenia differ dramatically in the availability of care for the older people. Some offer only a poor quality of care (mainly smaller rural municipalities), while others offer higher quality of care and a strong combination of both institutional and social home care.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32715869
The article looks at trends in inequality in Slovenia over the past 20 years. The changes have been significant in this period since it covers the country’s transition to democracy and to a market economy after it gained its independence in 1991. The chapter juxtaposes the trends in inequality with the trends in poverty and social exclusion in the period of transition of the Slovenian welfare state. Specific emphasis is placed on the emerging vulnerabilities and vulnerable groups and quality of life. Namely convergence with more developed European countries also brought new divisions and new inequalities.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32763229
Slovenia is facing a demographic change and ageing of population and needs to develop services for long term care that would enable higher quality of life of the elderly population. One such service is social home care. The book presents the results of the only national representative survey of the quality of social home care. It presents this service and different approaches to its evaluation, as well as analysis of past research on macro, mezzo and micro levels. It also presents comprehensive research results on evaluation of quality of social home care from the perspective of users, their family members and social workers. This is especially important for policy makers as it points to the needed improvements and changes.
COBISS.SI-ID: 275800064