The effect of long-term care environments on health outcomes

This study contrasts rates of mortality and of relocation to higher levels of care as well as trajectories of cognitive status, functional ability, depression, and subjective health of residents of an assisted living facility with those of a nursing home. Data were collected from medical records and face-to-face interviews with 158 residents at baseline and 4, 8, and 12 months later. All participants lived on a single long-term care campus. Logistic regression revealed that facility was not a significant predictor of mortality or relocations due to declining health. A repeated measures analysis of variance found that outcomes for people living in the two facilities did not change at different rates. These consistent findings suggest that although the assisted living and nursing home environments claim to have different philosophies of care, health outcome patterns for people living in the two environments were similar.