An overview of behaviour difficulties found in long-term elderly care settings

✍ Scribed by Graham Alan Jackson; Gavin James Templeton; Jennifer Whyte

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 78 KB
• Volume: 14
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6230
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1166(199906)14:6<426::aid-gps934>3.0.co;2-d

✦ Synopsis

Study objective. To provide an understanding of the nature and prevalence of behaviour diculties in long-term care facilities, to compare care settings and comment on the appropriateness of the need for specialist care.

Design. Nurses or carers implemented two rating scales in randomly selected settings.

Setting. Nursing homes, residential homes and NHS elderly long-stay wards.

Subjects. Elderly long-stay patients.

Main results. NHS and nursing home long-term care facilities show similar behaviour diculties, with nursing homes experiencing more behaviour manifestations in most cases. Residential facilities have behaviour diculties to a lesser extent.

Conclusions. Nursing homes have limited formal psychiatric intervention compared to NHS settings. Behaviour diculties result in increased work for general practitioners and increased hospital referrals. More prospective research is required into the antecedents, eects and treatments of patients with behaviour diculties in nursing homes. For example, it may be appropriate that specialist input is provided for nursing homes in order to implement behaviour intentions and contribute to the reduction of GP callouts and pharmacological interventions.