Search

This study contrasts rates of mortality and of relocation to higher levels of care as well as trajectories of cognitive status, functional ability, depression, and subjective health of residents of an assisted living facility with those of a nursing home. Data were collected from medical records and face-to-face interviews with 158 residents at baseline and 4, 8, and 12 months later. All participants lived on a single long-term care campus. Logistic regression revealed that facility was not a significant predictor of mortality or relocations due to declining health. A repeated measures analysis of variance found that outcomes for people living in the two facilities did not change at different rates. These consistent findings suggest that although the assisted living and nursing home environments claim to have different philosophies of care, health outcome patterns for people living in the two environments were similar.

Objectives. This study examines similarities and differences in social interactions of residents of an assisted living facility and those of a nursing home. Given increasingly popular alternative models of long-term care such as assisted living, the study seeks to identify how these long-term care settings differentially promote dependence and independence among their residents. Methods. Data were collected during 256 observations of 64 residents and their social partners at meal times in public areas. Sequences of antecedent and response behaviors relating to independence and dependence in the two different long-term care settings were examined. Results. Social partners responded consistently to behavior of long-term care residents, and the behavior of residents was consistently affected by that of their social partners. These sequential interactions were not affected by setting. Discussion. Differences in the nursing home and assisted living facilities' stated philosophies of care were not manifested in the interactions of their staff and residents.

Among the major costs associated with conducting survey research are the time and money spent recruiting a large and racially representative sample. Contrasted here are the costs of different recruitment strategies (agencies, support groups, snowballs, media, mass mailings) in terms of project time, supplies (e.g., postage, support materials), and staff time as they bear on the costs of recruiting 841 older mothers of offspring with lifelong disabilities. Results indicate that the costs of recruitment vary by method and race. Whereas agencies, support groups, and snowball recruitment were low- to moderate-cost strategies, they were less effective for recruiting African Americans than were media and demographic sampling unit strategies. These analyses suggest that with appropriate planning, funding, and implementation, nonprobability sampling methods can be used successfully to recruit a large and diverse sample. Suggestions for improving the implementation of future recruitment campaigns are also offered. Key Words: Recruitment, Caregiving, Field research