Abstract:Objective To investigate the awareness of combination of medical care and nursing service in geriatric personnel and its current status in China. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted in all the members of Chinese Geriatrics Society from September to December 2015. A total of 1232 valid questionnaires were included in the analysis. Results The 1232 respondents were from 31 provinces and municipalities. There were 724% of them aged ≥40 years, 703% having master degree or above, and 766% having senior professional titles. More than 2/3 of the respondents had certain awareness on the concept and content of combination of medical care and nursing service, and about half of them had been involved in the corresponding work. More than 95% of the respondents thought it was necessary to set up national unified teaching materials, training bases, and standardized and specialist training programs for medical staffs who were engaged in geriatric medicine. However, only 54.8% of the questioned hospitals had carried out specialist training for nurses, 36.7% for nursing assistants, and the amount of those with teaching materials was even lower. A total of 175 (34.9%) hospitals had carried out combination of medical care and nursing service, mainly in the forms of extension service after hospital discharge (62.3%), cooperation with nursing homes (57.1%), reservation of nursing home beds for the elderly (40.6%), providing family doctors (38.3%) and setting up nursing homes (36.6%). The service objects mainly consisted of discharged patients (77.7%), community elderly (69.7%) and elderly in the nursing homes (60.0%). Special services included chronic disease management (88.0%), guidance of medication (87.4%), physical examination (78.3%), rehabilitation and aids adaptation (571%), spiritual consolation (531%) and hospice care (526%). Most of the geriatric departments and their extended services were umable to make ends meet, and need local policy support. Conclusion Though the geriatric staffs have well awareness and understanding on the combination of medical care and nursing service, it is still lack of national supporting on the construction for the personnel, training bases and other aspects. There are still many medical institutes having not provided the combination of medical care and nursing service and lacking of training and personnel development system for geriatric staffs.