Abstract
Japan is famous for its long Length of Stay (LOS) of in-patient services. One of the reasons of this long LOS is the long stay of aged patients. It is estimated that one third of hospitalized aged patient stay in the hospital because of social reasons not by medical needs. In order to clarify the factors associated with longer LOS among the aged patients, we have conducted a patient survey in September 2006. A questionnaire survey has conducted at all long term care hospitals (220 facilities) in Fukuoka in September 2006. All aged patients who had stayed in the institution more than 180 days were investigated. We investigated the background factors of long LOS among the 4,862 hospitalized aged, by the logistic regression analyses. Results showed that female, no care giver at home, existence of dementia, no residence to discharge, no willingness to discharge, were associated with longer length of stay. On the contrary, live alone, higher medical needs, and living in Ariake and Yame-Chikugo regions were associated with shorter length of stay. The present results have suggested the importance of housing policy for the frail elderly in order to solve the longer LOS problem in Japan.
