Characteristics of Elderly Nursing Home Current Residents and Discharges:  Data from the 1997 National Nursing Home Survey

Advance Data 312. Characteristics of Elderly Nursing Home Current Residents and Discharges:  Data from the 1997 National Nursing Home Survey. 16 pp. (PHS) 2000-1250
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Elderly nursing home residents in 1997 were predominantly white, non-Hispanic, widowed, women, and 75 years and over according to a newly released report, "Characteristics of Elderly Nursing Home Residents and Discharges: Data From the 1997 National Nursing Home Survey."

This report presents the sociodemographic characteristics, functional dependencies in the activities of daily living (ADL's) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL's), dental status, primary admission diagnoses, types of services used, and source of payment of elderly nursing home residents. The data presented in this report were collected from the National Center for Health Statistics’ 1997 National Nursing Home Survey. The survey sample consisted of current residents aged 65 years and over.

Data Highlights:

In 1997, an estimated 1.5 million elderly residents aged 65 years and over were living in a nursing home.

A significantly large portion of the elderly residents needed help in ADL’s and IADL’s. The ADL that residents required assistance with most frequently was bathing or showering (96 percent). Approximately 77 percent of all elderly residents required assistance with at least one IADL.

For both elderly men and women, the most common primary diagnostic category for current residents and discharges was diseases of the circulatory system.

At the time of admission, Medicaid was the primary public funding source (38 percent) for elderly nursing home residents. Medicare was the source of payment for 30 percent of the current residents.

There were 2.1 million elderly nursing home discharges from October 1996 through September 1997 with the major reasons for discharge being hospitalization or death.

Keywords: National Nursing Home Survey; long-term care; current residents; discharges

This page last reviewed October 15, 2008