Predictors of Long Term Care Facility Use among the Elderly

ABSTRACT This research uses data from the Manitoba Longitudinal Study on Aging and multiple logistic regression analysis to assess the impact of twenty-eight sociodemographic and health status variables on nursing home admission. The results indicate that 1) all the short-term predictors continue to be significantly associated with facility bed use in the long run, suggesting that the high risk elderly can be identified relatively early; 2) the key sociodemographic characteristics are better predictors of admission than health and physical functioning characteristics; and 3) time itself appears to change the relationship of the study variables to admission.