Nationwide, almost eight percent of all nursing home residents receive long-term sedatives or sleeping pills. This is what the AOK care report shows. There are big regional differences.
Pressure ulcers, problematic medication administration or hospital admissions: There are significant regional differences in the care of people in nursing homes. This is shown by an analysis by the Scientific Institute of the Federal Association of General Local Health Insurance Funds (AOK).
Home residents sedated for a long time
An important point is the prescription of sleeping pills and sedatives. According to the care report, the proportion of those in need of care in homes who received a permanent prescription in 2021 was on average 7.6 percent. In the quarter of the regions with the best results, a maximum of 4.7 percent were affected, while in the quarter of the regions with the worst results, just under 10 percent were affected.
According to the data, heavy use of sedatives is particularly common in North Rhine-Westphalia and Saarland, where 45 of the 53 independent cities and districts have noticeable results. The funds are used more cautiously in almost all of East Germany. The scientists were unable to give reasons for the different use of medication.
“Actually, people in need of care should be treated with the sleeping pills and sedatives tested for a maximum of four weeks,” explained Antje Schwinger from the AOK Scientific Institute. Long-term use risks, among other things, dependence, an increased risk of falling and the development of feelings of anxiety, depression and aggression.
Differences on other topics too
Significant regional differences were also evident in other topics analyzed: Nationwide, almost 4 percent of all nursing home residents suffering from dementia had a hospital stay in 2021 due to insufficient fluid intake. In the 20 districts with the most noticeable values, however, it was between 7.5 and 12.5 percent. Conspicuous circles can be found in Bavaria, Lower Saxony, the south of Rhineland-Palatinate and in North Rhine-Westphalia.
The report examined billing data from 2021 from numerous regions. According to AOK, data from 350,000 nursing home residents aged 60 and over were included in the study. This corresponds to around half of the people in need of inpatient care in Germany. The results were published in a new one Care quality atlas published, which is intended to make developments in care visible on a small scale.
Fewer people in hospital at the end of life
The study sees positive developments, for example in the often unnecessary hospital stays of nursing home residents at the end of their lives. The proportion of people who were in a hospital in their last 30 days of life fell from 47 percent nationwide in 2017 to 42 percent in 2021. There were also major regional differences on this topic. The leader in hospital admissions at the end of life is Saarland with a share of 49.5 percent in 2021 (2017: 55 percent), at the other end of the scale is Saxony with 36 percent (2017: 43 percent).
From the perspective of the German Nursing Council, the data once again shows that better collaboration between nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals is necessary. “The collaboration between the nursing profession, doctors and clinics must be restructured on an equal footing,” demanded Nursing Council President Christine Vogler.