Long Term Care Facilities Choice Factor Analysis

Abstract

Introduction: The largest generation in America has reached retirement age and will continue to do so until the year 2030. This has caused tremendous growth of long-term care facilities and warrants investigation into these facilities. The goal of this study is to understand and quantify incoming residents’ factors of primary importance as assessed by themselves and familial decision makers when choosing a long-term care facility. Methods: Three hundred fifty-four adults who had previously been involved in choosing a long term care facility for a loved one were paid up to $1.25 to complete a questionnaire online via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Participants rated importance of 10 factors involved in decision-making (e.g., price, social environment, medical care availability) on a scale of 1-100. Results: The result of data cleaning culminated in 287 quality survey responses, from which the data was analyzed. One hundred fifty-five of the participants (54%) were female and 1 (<1%) was trans-gender. Ages ranged from 20 to 74 with a mean of 37 years (SD = 11.58) and a mode of 30 years. Overall, the 10 importance items were rated as 76.71/100 (SD = 12.66). A principal component analysis on importance ratings suggested 2 factors with eigenvalues > 1, accounting for 55.52% of variance. Factor 1-Comfort and factor 2-Practicality were significantly intercorrelated (r = 0.43). The most important factors were cleanliness, staff (non-physician), and atmosphere (mean scores of 89.43, 85.58, & 84.62 respectively). The least important factors were facility layout and off-site activities (mean scores of 66.64 & 48.43 respectively). Conclusion: Overall, many factors go into decision on long-term care facilities, with the most important factors likely involving cleanliness, staff, and atmosphere. The results of this research can be utilized in long term care facility selection and provide a platform for facilities to adapt to their residents. Mentor: Melissa A. Cyders. Department of Psychology, IUPUI School of Science. Funding provided by the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP).