Functional disability at nursing home admission: A comparison of urban andrural admission cohorts

This study objective was to examine the relationships between rural residen ce and availability of nursing home and home health care to functional disa bility at the time of nursing home admission. Secondary data were obtained from the Minimum Data Set (MDS) 2.0 for Nebraska for 3,443 rural and 1,296 urban older people admitted to nursing facilities. Data from the MDS were m erged with county-level data on home health agencies and nursing homes in N ebraska. The relationship of rurality of nursing home residents' prior resi dence and availability of nursing home and home health care to functional s tatus at admission, controlling for demographic and health characteristics of older people, was estimated using multiple linear regression with robust variance estimates, After taking, account of demographic and health status characteristics, rural residence and availability of home health and nursi ng home care had nonsignificant effects on functional status at admission. The findings indicate that functional disability at admission is associated with specific diseases and medical conditions, cognitive status, gender, l iving arrangements and marital arrangements. Rural older people are not at higher risk of admission at lower levels of functional disability compared to their urban counterparts.