Quality of mental health care for nursing home residents: a literature review.
Because of the high proportion of nursing home residents with a mental illness other than dementia, the quality of mental health care in nursing homes is a major clinical and policy issue. The authors apply Donabedian's framework for assessing quality of care based on the triad of structure, process, and outcome-based measures in reviewing the literature on the quality of mental health care in nursing homes. Quality measures used within the literature include mental health consultations and hospitalizations, inappropriate use of medications, and mental health survey deficiencies. Factors related to the resident's welfare (nurse staffing), provider norms (locality), and financial factors (payer mix) were associated with the quality of mental health care. Although future research is necessary, the extant literature suggests that persons with mental illness are frequently admitted to nursing homes and their care is often of poor quality and related to a series of resident and facility factors.
Grabowski
David C
DC
Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115-5899, USA. grabowski@med.harvard.edu
Aschbrenner
Kelly A
KA
Rome
Vincent F
VF
Bartels
Stephen J
SJ
D006801:Humans; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000592:standards*; D009735:Nursing Homes / Q000592:standards*; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D014481:United States