UNMET NEEDS EFFECT ON THE LIFE SATISFACTION OF OLDER ADULTS WITH

DISABILITIES IN BARANGAY PAPANDAYAN, MARAWI CITY, LANAO DEL SUR,

PHILIPPINES

A Research Proposal

Submitted to:
Prof. Shirikit I. Casim, MAN, LPT, RM, RN
Instructor, MSU-Main Campus
Marawi City

In Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Course
Research Methods (NSG199)
2nd Semester, A.Y. 2021-2022

By

Narimah M. Serad

Johanisa T. Sultan

April 2023
 CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM AND ITS SCOPE

Background of the Study

Old age is the quality or state of being old and near the end of one's life. It is when one

reaches the age of 60 that we can label him/her as an older adult. As we age, we experience an

increasing number of major life changes, including career transitions and retirement, children

leaving home, the loss of loved ones, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral adjustments, physical

and health challenges—and even a loss of independence. Due to these changes, some older

adults develop disabilities because they can’t cope effectively. It is expected that by the year

2050, people over the age of 60 are expected to double today’s population and that about half of

that population will have a disability. Around the world, older adults with disabilities face many

obstacles including attitudinal, environmental, and institutional barriers preventing their full and

equal participation in all aspects of life, resulting in lower quality of life and dissatisfaction. The

needs of older adults with disabilities are more extensive than that of older adults with no

disabilities because they call for special treatment and assistance to address their needs. Often,

older adults with disabilities are stigmatized, neglected, disregarded, discriminated against, and

denied of legal capacity and institutionalization therefore diminishing their quality of life and

demotivating them to continue living life healthily. Unmet needs can be defined as a need for

something, that thing would improve a situation, or something that cannot happen without it.

Now when needs are not met, it can lead to feelings of resentment, anger, confusion,

disappointment, frustration, hopelessness, irritation, sadness, loneliness, and embarrassment.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory by Abraham Maslow, which puts forward that people are
motivated by five basic categories of needs: physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-

actualization. In order to better understand what motivates human beings, Maslow proposed that

human needs can be organized into a hierarchy. This hierarchy ranges from more concrete needs

such as food and water to abstract concepts such as self-fulfillment. According to Maslow, when

a lower need is met, the next need on the hierarchy becomes the focus of attention, thus failing to

meet the lower need means we can’t prioritize the next concept until we have met the more basic

ones.

According to Aglipay-Villar (2022), Maslow's Hierarchy has gained popularity because it

accurately depicts how we view our own needs. We are aware of how difficult it is to concentrate

on anything else when we are hungry and how more serious concerns about our job and studies

might be overshadowed by a more immediate want for food and drink. Although there are

numerous things that people require, receiving wholesome nourishment and water is at the core

of all of these demands. For Santamaria (2019), need theories of motivation can help explain

what drives individuals to action, and they have also been used to describe what human beings

need in order to flourish.

Unmet needs are defined as the difference between services deemed necessary by the

recipients and the actual services they receive and represent a measure of the quality of life

(Carandang et al, 2019). Several studies focused on the unmet needs of senior citizens diagnosed

with cancer and undergoing active cancer treatment. For example, according to a study

conducted by Hansen et al. having unmet needs of rehabilitation was strongly associated with

more psychological distress and reduced health-related quality of life. Only a few studies,
however, focused on community-dwelling senior citizens. A study in Spain stated that there were

considerable social and material inequalities in access to home care. These inequalities may

widen in the future due to poor coverage of the public system for home and personal care. Thus,

the lack of public policy initiatives may lead to increasing unmet needs. Generally, senior

citizens have more complex needs compared with younger adults due to an additional disability,

physical illness, and social needs. Their unmet needs should be identified and anticipated due to

their economic and social consequences. By understanding the nature and extent of their unmet

needs, the government can formulate new public policy initiatives.

Little is known about how Filipino senior citizens cope with their unmet needs and how it

affects their quality of life. Coping mechanisms are the strategies people often use in the face of

adversity to help manage painful and challenging life events while maintaining their emotional

and psychological well-being.

In this study, we used Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory as our framework to

investigate how unmet requirements impact the life satisfaction of older individuals with

disabilities in Barangay Papandayan, Marawi City, Lanao Del Sur. The results of this study may

be crucial for gaining a better understanding of how older persons with disabilities' quality of life

and overall well-being are impacted when their basic requirements are not met.

Theoretical Framework

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a model for understanding the motivations for human

behavior. It maps different motivations onto a pyramid, with each level representing a different

human need. These include physiological needs, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-
actualization. Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs is one of the best-known theories of

motivation and his theory suggests that our actions are motivated by certain physiological and

psychological needs that progress from basic to complex. People are motivated to fulfill the basic

needs first before moving on to other, more advanced needs, to feel more fulfilled.

Support for this theory is provided by some research that showed that fulfillment of

primary needs ladders the gap to help us attend to our advanced needs. In the research of Rennie

(2008), he pointed out that “the satisfaction of higher needs is contingent on the lower needs

having been met”. Rauschenberger, Schmitt, and Hunter’s (1980) study proved Rennie’s (2008)

statement, and their study found Maslow's need of satisfaction follows low-high order in the

hierarchical structure. Also, the research of Wahba & Bridwell (1976) also supported that

“people seek objects and engaging behavior that are in no way related to the satisfaction of

needs,” and questioned the pyramid structure of Maslow’s needs. Conversely, Taormina, and

Gao’s (2013) study found that the satisfaction of a lower-level need immediately below any

given need in the hierarchy of Maslow’s needs can predict the next higher-level need's

satisfaction.

Conceptual framework

Unmet:
 Physiological needs
Effect on
 Safety needs
activities of Effect on
 Love and belonging quality of life
daily living
 Esteem
 Self-actualization
Statement of the Problem

This study aims to determine the effect of unmet needs on the quality of life of older

adults with disabilities in Barangay Papandayan, Marawi City, Lanao del Sur using Maslow’s

Hierarchy of needs.

Hence the researchers seek to answer the following questions:

1. What is the respondent’s profile in terms of:

1.1 Age

1.2 Gender

1.3 Civil status

1.4 Employment

1.5 Income

2. Does patient possess basic needs such as:

2.1 Water

2.2 Food

2.3 Shelter

2.4 Clothing

2.5 Enough sleep

3. Does patient possess safety needs such as:

3.1 Personal security

3.2 Employment
 3.3 Resources

3.4 Health

3.5 Property

4. Does patient receive/ encompass:

4.1 Confidence

4.2 Strength

4.3 Self-belief

4.4 Personal and social acceptance

4.5 Respect from others

5. Does patient demonstrate:

5.1 Morality

5.2 Creativity

5.3 Spontaneity

5.4 Acceptance

5.5 Experience

5.6 Meaning and inner potential

Objectives of the Study

1. To determine how unmet needs, based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, affect the quality

of life and life satisfaction of older adults in Barangay Papandayan, Marawi City, Lanao

Del Sur.

Assumptions

The following basic assumptions were made in regards to this study:

 1. Respondents can read and understand directions and items.

2. Respondents will provide accurate and honest answers to questions.

3. The instrument to be used measure life satisfaction, in the specified population, will elicit

reliable responses.

4. Physical, mental, and environmental factors will be unique to each subject.

Significance of the Study

This study is significant as the findings from this study may be essential to have a better

understanding of