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Volume 11,Issue 1

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26 January 2026

Research on Ethical Issues and Legal Safeguards in Home Care Services for the Elderly

Mingxing Feng1 Yingqiu Chen2 Chongyu Cai3
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1 Hainan Vocational College of Science and Technology, Haikou 571137, Hainan, China
2 Baoting County Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Baoting 572399, Hainan, China
3 Hainan Chengmei Hospital, Haikou 570311, Hainan, China
APM 2026 , 11(1), 21–26; https://doi.org/10.18063/APM.v11i1.1214
© 2026 by the Author. Licensee Whioce Publishing, Singapore. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

With the acceleration of population aging in China, home care services, as an important component of the elderly care service system, play a significant role in meeting the care needs of the elderly. However, home care services are confronted with numerous ethical dilemmas and insufficient legal protection in practice. This article systematically analyzes the ethical issues existing in home care services for the elderly, such as the conflict between privacy rights and autonomous decision-making rights, the unfair distribution of care resources, and the balance between professional ethics and family ethics. This paper analyzes the current legal and regulatory system’s imperfection, the absence of quality supervision mechanisms, and the unsmooth channels for rights protection. It also puts forward countermeasures and suggestions from the aspects of improving the legal norm system, establishing ethical supervision mechanisms, and perfecting the channels for rights protection, with the aim of providing references for promoting the healthy development of home care services.

Keywords
The elderly
Home care
Ethical issues
Legal guarantee
Protection of rights and interests
References

[1] Wang L, 2024, The Ethical Basis and Institutional Guarantee of Long-Term Care Insurance Home Care Program. Medicine and Philosophy, 45(1): 42–45.

[2] Liu X, Li C, Jing L, et al., 2024, Research Progress on Home Care Service Preferences of Elderly People with Mobility Difficulties. Journal of Nursing, 39(7): 122–125.

[3] Tan Z, Li L, Zhou H, et al., 2024, Research on the Utilization of Traditional Chinese Medicine Home Care Services for the Elderly from the Perspective of Medical and Preventive Integration. Journal of Chinese Medicine Management, 32(9): 140–143.

[4] Wei S, Liang C, Zhao S, 2023, Research on the Scheduling Problem of Community-Based Home Care Nursing Staff Considering Elderly Satisfaction. Journal of Small and Micro Computer Systems, 44(12): 2625–2632.

[5] Shen M, Gao Y, Liu X, et al., 2023, Progress in Home Service Quality Management under the Long-Term Care Insurance System. Chinese Journal of Urban and Rural Enterprise Health, 38(2): 60–62.

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