In the context of declining family sizes, declining birth rates, and the accompanying weakening of home care functions, this paper aims to explore different home care patterns and their diverse social support preferences. Using a mixed research design, in the first stage, a discrete choice experiment questionnaire was designed to investigate the families of 331 old adults with disabilities in Chongqing, Shanxi, and Jiangsu cities. In the second stage, using grounded theory, semi-structured interviews were conducted with caregivers in 25 families, and combined with the three-level coding process of grounded theory, 20 sub-categories and 12 main categories were extracted to construct a differentiated social support theoretical framework including three dimensions: the care stress collision period, the stress moderate adaptation period, and the care inability period. The research results show that there are three types of family care for the disabled elderly, namely, severe disability and intensive care, severe disability and inadequate care, and mild disability and intermediate care. Home care patterns are influenced primarily by cognitive function, the number of noncommunicable diseases in older adults with disabilities, the level of caregiver education, and the economic situation of the entire family. Overall, the results showed that families of older adults with disabilities preferred medical support, financial support, emotional support, organizational support and information support in order. Comparing the heterogeneity of the 3 types of home preferences between the groups, it was found that Elderly families with severe disabilities exhibit a heightened demand for home-based services, while those in favorable economic circumstances tend to prioritize caregiving and companionship. Conversely, families facing financial hardships are more likely to seek support through family care subsidies.This study enriches and expands the family life cycle theory and social support theory from the theoretical level, and proposes differentiated social support measures and suggestions for families of different types of family care or different stages of care, such as providing auxiliary education support, partial support, and full support.