Empirical development of a typology on residential long-term care units in Germany - results of an exploratory multivariate data analysis

BACKGROUND: Organizational health care research focuses on describing structures and processes in organizations and investigating their impact on the quality of health care. In the setting of residential long-term care, this effort includes the examination and description of structural differences among the organizations (e.g., nursing homes). The objective of the analysis is to develop an empirical typology of living units in nursing homes that differ in their structural characteristics. METHODS: Data from the DemenzMonitor Study were used. The DemenzMonitor is an observational study carried out in a convenience sample of 103 living units in 51 nursing homes spread over 11 German federal states. Characteristics of living units were measured by 19 variables related to staffing, work organization, building characteristics and meal preparation. Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) and agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis (AHC) are suitable to create a typology of living units. Both methods are multivariate and explorative. We present a comparison with a previous typology (created by a nonexplorative and nonmultivariate process) of the living units derived from the same data set. RESULTS: The MCA revealed differences among the living units, which are defined in particular by the size of the living unit (number of beds), the additional qualifications of the head nurse, the living concept and the presence of additional financing through a separate benefit agreement. We identified three types of living units; these clusters occur significantly with a certain combination of characteristics. In terms of content, the three clusters can be defined as: “house community”, “dementia special care units” and “usual care”. CONCLUSION: A typology is useful to gain a deeper understanding of the differences in the care structures of residential long-term care organizations. In addition, the study provides a practical recommendation on how to apply the results, enabling living units to be assigned to a certain type. The typology can be used as a reference for definitions.