Study on Service Quality of and Users¡¦ Satisfaction with Nursing Homes for the Aged ¡V Old People¡¦s Apartments in Kaohsiung County Abstract Raising children as insurance against the insecurity of old age has been a deep-rooted concept of the Chinese people. Traditionally, care and nursing of the aged are mostly done in families. However, with the change of social and life styles, as well as the reduction of fertility rate, such kind of concept has been put to a severe test now. In the early stage, a nursing home was mainly the shelter for homeless, solitary and poor old people. The concept of social welfare still remains in the stage of providing relief. Therefore, the old people who lived in the nursing homes were labeled as poor. Besides, ¡§the standard, contents and methods of service provided by the nursing homes also make the general people to halt in hesitation.¡¨ In fact, in addition to physiological satisfaction, the aged will also pursue the psychological satisfaction, i.e., a living worthy of human dignity, at their old age. This is right the ultimate goal to promote the business of nursing homes. Owing to the increasing demand for care and nursing of the aged, the government also encourages the establishment of private nursing organizations for the aged. Hence, the fee-for-service private nursing organizations of ¡§service¡¨ nature emerge gradually, apart from the government-supported nursing organizations of ¡§relief¡¨ nature. The old people who live in such an organization become ¡§welfare consumers¡¨. In Kaohsiung County, the old people¡¦s apartments are run in a fee-for-service mode under the sponsorship of the government, but they have to be responsible for the profit and loss of the apartments by themselves. The purpose of this study is to know the service quality of nursing homes at present and the old people¡¦s satisfaction with the service they received. (1) To understand the service quality of the nursing homes in order to provide a basis of their management for the government. (2) To understand the users¡¦ satisfaction with nursing homes in order to meet the demands of the aged. (3) To discuss the relationship between service quality of the nursing homes and the user¡¦s satisfaction.