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Objectives: The objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of pain, describe its treatment, and determine factors associated with any pain in older residents assigned to a hospice specialty unit bed or receiving services from a hospice/palliative care/end-of-life special program in US nursing homes. Design: Cross-sectional study of data from the 2004 National Nursing Home Survey. Setting: The setting was 1174 US nursing homes. Participants: Participants were 303 sampled patients, 65 years or older, representing 33,413 individuals receiving hospice/palliative care. Measurements: Facility staff was asked if, in the past 7 days, the resident had reported or shown evidence of pain. Medication use data were derived from medication administration records. Information about demographics and health status was derived from Minimum Data Set records. Results: Cancer was the primary diagnosis in only 11.4% of residents. Overall 36.6% had any pain in the previous week. Among those with any pain, 86.4% received some analgesic; specifically, 65.5% received opioids, whereas 31.7% received acetaminophen. Those with any pain compared with those without pain had shorter lengths of stay in hospice/palliative care (mean 123 days versus 161 days, P < .01), were more likely to be incontinent of bowel (76.2%, versus 60.3%, P < 0.01) and bladder (84.5% versus 71.8%, P = 0.01). Conclusions: Pain symptoms were present in more than one third of older nursing home hospice/palliative care residents despite the use of opioids in two thirds of those who had reported or shown evidence of any pain. Additional future studies are needed to improve the management of pain in older residents receiving hospice/palliative care in US nursing homes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: Religion and spirituality remain important social and psychological factors in the lives of older adults, and there is continued interest in examining the effects of religion and spirituality on health status. The purpose of this study was to examine the interaction of religion and spirituality with self-reported health status in a community-dwelling geriatric population.Methods: We performed a cross-sectional analysis of 277 geriatric outpatients participating in a cohort study in the Kansas City area. Patients underwent a home assessment of multiple health status and functional indicators by trained research assistants. A previously validated 5-item measure of religiosity and 12-item spirituality instrument were embedded during the final data collection. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to determine the relationship between each factor and self-reported health status.Results: In univariate analyses, physical functioning (P < .01), quality of life (P < .01), race (P < .01), depression (P < .01), age (P = .01), and spirituality (P < .01) were all associated with self-reported health status, but religiosity was not (P = .12). In a model adjusted for all covariates, however, spirituality remained independently associated with self-appraised good health (P = .01).Conclusions: Geriatric outpatients who report greater spirituality, but not greater religiosity, are more likely to appraise their health as good. Spirituality may be an important explanatory factor of subjective health status in older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]