Decisive Factors in the Quality of the Institutional Custodial Care for Elderly and/or Disabled People

Abstract

Sociological studies on both the macro and the micro level have pointed out different factors that affect the quality of institutional care provided to elderly in Nursing Homes. This study proposes a theoretical basic model of quality of care, and examines the influence of predictive factors on the quality of assisting on a sample of 100 Nursing Homes in the USA, including 286 residents and their family caregivers. The most important factors associated with the quality of care in this study were several aspects of the institutional level —whether the center is for profit, the environment, familiar configuration, percentage of staff per bed, stress training, and turnover—, followed by relational factors—family involvement and participation. However, contrary to expectations, factors of the interactional level —communication styles, personal conflict resolution—, were not significant on the quality of institutional care, or at least, based on the results of this study, they did not seem to have a significant influence on the level of quality of care.