Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
BMC Health Serv Res. 2020 Nov 9;20(1):987. doi: 10.1186/s12913-020-05833-y.
Knowledge about the relationship between the residents' Quality of Life (QOL) and the nursing home price is currently lacking. Therefore, this study investigates the relationship between 11 dimensions of QOL and nursing homes price in Flemish nursing homes.
The data used in this cross-sectional study were collected by the Flemish government from years 2014 to 2017 and originates from 659 Flemish nursing homes. From 2014 to 2016, data on the QOL of 21,756 residents was assessed with the InterRAI instrument. This instrument contains 11 QOL dimensions. Multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to examine the research question.
The multiple linear regressions indicated that a 10 euro increase in the daily nursing home price is associated with a significant decrease (P < 0.001) of 0.1 in 5 dimensions of QOL (access to services, comfort and environment, food and meals, respect, and safety and security). Hence, our results indicate that the association between price and QOL is very small. When conducting a subgroup analysis based on ownership type, the earlier found results remained only statistically significant for private nursing homes.
Our findings show that nursing home price is of limited importance with respect to resident QOL. Contrary to popular belief, our study demonstrates a limited negative effect of price on QOL. Further research that includes other indicators of QOL is needed to allow policymakers and nursing home managers to improve nursing home residents' QOL.
目前缺乏关于居民生活质量（QOL）与养老院价格之间关系的知识。因此，本研究调查了弗拉芒养老院 11 个 QOL 维度与养老院价格之间的关系。
本横断面研究使用的数据由弗拉芒政府于 2014 年至 2017 年收集，源自 659 家弗拉芒养老院。2014 年至 2016 年，使用 InterRAI 工具评估了 21756 名居民的 QOL。该工具包含 11 个 QOL 维度。进行多元线性回归分析以检验研究问题。
多元线性回归表明，养老院日收费每增加 10 欧元，与 5 个 QOL 维度（服务获取、舒适和环境、饮食、尊重和安全保障）显著下降 0.1（P<0.001）相关。因此，我们的结果表明价格与 QOL 之间的关联非常小。当根据所有权类型进行亚组分析时，之前发现的结果仅在私人养老院中具有统计学意义。
我们的研究结果表明，养老院价格对居民的 QOL 影响有限。与普遍看法相反，我们的研究表明价格对 QOL 的负面影响有限。需要进一步研究包括其他 QOL 指标，以便政策制定者和养老院管理人员能够提高养老院居民的 QOL。
