QUALITY OF CARE, QUALITY-OF-LIFE AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THEM INLONG-TERM-CARE INSTITUTIONS FOR THE ELDERLY

A stratified randomly selected sample of 28 of all elderly long-term c are institutions in the Southampton district was studied including pri vate and local authority residential homes, private nursing homes and NHS geriatric and psychogeriatric wards. The manager was interviewed w ith a 57-item quality of care questionnaire modified from the methodol ogy of Willcocks et al. (1987) covering aspects of regime and environm ent. To assess quality of life, 10% of residents were randomly selecte d for a series of structured quality of life interviews and Barthel In dex determination. A life-history approach was used to build rapport a nd increase the authenticity of resident responses. Systematic signifi cant differences in quality of care and quality of life were found bet ween sectors. The correlation coefficients between quality of care and morale and between quality of care and dependency were significant (r = 0.526, p < 0.01; r = 0.508, p < 0.01 respectively) although the cor relation between morale and dependency (r = 0.155, p = 0.2) was insign ificant. High-quality care may be more difficult to provide in facilit ies for more disabled residents. This may affect their morale but the relationship between morale and dependency is complex.