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Assessment of nursing home residents in Europe: the Services and Health for Elderly in Long TERm care (Shelter) study

Onder, Graziano, Carpenter, G. Iain, Finne-Soveri, Harriet, Ginden, Jacob, Henrard, Jean Claude, Frijters, Dinnus, Topinkova, Eva, Nikolaus, Thorsten, Tosato, Matteo, Landi, Francesco, and others. (2012) Assessment of nursing home residents in Europe: the Services and Health for Elderly in Long TERm care (Shelter) study. Bmc Health Services Research, 12 (5). ISSN 1472-6963. (doi:10.1186/1472-6963-12-5) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:28634)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-12-5

Abstract

Background

Aims of the present study are the following: 1. to describe the rationale and methodology of the Services and Health for Elderly in Long TERm care (SHELTER) study, a project funded by the European Union, aimed at implementing the interRAI instrument for Long Term Care Facilities (interRAI LTCF) as a tool to assess and gather uniform information about nursing home (NH) residents across different health systems in European countries; 2. to present the results about the test-retest and inter-rater reliability of the interRAI LTCF instrument translated into the languages of participating countries; 3 to illustrate the characteristics of NH residents at study entry.

Method

A 12 months prospective cohort study was conducted in 57 NH in 7 EU countries (Czech Republic, England, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands) and 1 non EU country (Israel). Weighted kappa coefficients were used to evaluate the reliability of interRAI LTCF items.

Results

Mean age of 4156 residents entering the study was 83.4+/-9.4 years, 73% were female. ADL disability and cognitive impairment was observed in 81.3% and 68.0% of residents, respectively. Clinical complexity of residents was confirmed by a high prevalence of behavioral symptoms (27.5% of residents), falls (18.6%), pressure ulcers (10.4%), pain (36.0%) and urinary incontinence (73.5%). Overall, 197 of the 198 the items tested met or exceeded standard cut-offs for acceptable test-retest and inter-rater reliability after translation into the target languages.

Conclusion

The interRAI LTCF appears to be a reliable instrument. It enables the creation of databases that can be used to govern the provision of long-term care across different health systems in Europe to answer relevant resesearch and policy questions and to compare characteristics of NH residents across countries, languages and cultures.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1186/1472-6963-12-5
Subjects: H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC952 Geriatrics
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research > Centre for Health Services Studies
Depositing User: Iain Carpenter
Date Deposited: 27 Jan 2012 14:49 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 10:06 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/28634 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Carpenter, G. Iain.

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