Staffing and antipsychotic medication use in nursing homes and neighborhood deprivation (24 April 2024)

Summary

This US cross-sectional study in JAMA Network Open aimed to find out whether there is a difference in reported inappropriate antipsychotic medication use between severely and less severely deprived neighbourhoods, and whether this difference is modified by greater total nurse staffing hours. The study included 10,966 nursing homes and found that nursing homes that fell below critical levels of staffing (less than three hours of nurse staffing per resident-day), were associated with higher inappropriate antipsychotic medication use among nursing homes in severely deprived neighbourhoods (19.2%) compared with nursing homes in less deprived neighbourhoods (17.1%).

These findings suggest that addressing staffing deficiencies in nursing homes, particularly those located in severely deprived neighbourhoods, is crucial in mitigating inappropriate antipsychotic medication use.