Abstract

Objective: Combining different national quality registries (NQR) can provide a broader picture of health and preventive care among older people in nursing home.
The aim of this study was to explore how National Quality registries be used in research to understand health and preventive care among older people in Swedish nursing homes.

Methods: A descriptive mixed-method study, including a case report and statistical analysis (descriptive and factor analysis), was performed. Nine National Quality Registries, three health registries and a social care registry maintained by the Swedish government were individually matched to an older population (birth year 1896 to 1958) in the Swedish Twin Registry (n≈44000). From these, around 4,6% were living in nursing homes.

Results: The factor analyses demonstrated that the loadings indicate little overlap in definition of the factors: 1) includes registries that track stroke, dementia, hip fractures, and aging issues (Senior Alert); 2) includes registries that tap heart-related health issues; and 3) taps forms of arthritis. By using the definition by the Swedish government, 161 people in our sample were identified as “most ill elderly”. Two of them were randomly selected for case reports. Each case appeared in 6 or 7 of the health quality registries, providing sufficient information to track their progression through the health care system until the point of death.

Conclusion: The results highlight both pros and cons of using the quality registries as the basis for analysis and “registry-enriched” research designs, but more research needs to be performed to understand how NQRs can be used in research to understand health and preventive work among older people in nursing homes.